Atlas Shrugged Part 2: Life Imitates Art with Romney vs.

Obama
By Jim Fink
on 10/12/2032 - 09:00 AM

“One of these days you're going to have to decide what side you're on.”

-- Hank Rearden (time stamp 2:15)

Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand’s literary masterpiece about the economic battle between individual
property rights and government theft is back in movie theaters on Friday (Oct. 12, 2012). This
time, it’s Part 2. As you may recall, Atlas Shrugged Part 1 was released on April 15, 2011 – the
day when federal income taxes are normally due (it was actually the 18th in 2011). Movie
producer John Aglialoro intentionally chose this release date because nothing represents
government theft better than taxation.

The October 12th release date for Part 2 is just as meaningful, coming on the day in 1492 that
Christopher Columbus – as a representative of the values of Western civilization (e.g., reason
and individualism) -- discovered America. As we get closer to the most pivotal U.S. presidential
election in our nation’s history, Atlas Shrugged Part 2 could not be coming out at a better time
because it focuses the electorate on the stark choice to be made on November 6th. The
subheading for Part 2 of Atlas Shrugged is “Either-Or” as in: either you support the free-market
capitalist system of America or you support the economic socialism of European countries.

Romney vs. Obama

On the side of American capitalism is Mitt Romney. First, he is a venture capitalist who co-
founded Bain Capital and helped corporations like Staples (NasdaqGS: SPLS), Sports
Authority, and Guitar Center become American success stories. Romney is very experienced
in “taking risk, sometimes failing, sometimes succeeding, but always striving.” Second, Romney
is a Mormon – the only “uniquely and intrinsically American” religion that has “adopted the
country’s secular faith in money.” Lastly, Romney named his eldest son Taggart (perhaps in
honor of Atlas Shrugged heroine Dagny Taggart?) and picked Paul Ryan – an admirer of Ayn
Rand -- as his running mate.

On the side of European socialism is Barack Obama, who has raised middle-class taxes by
$4,000 per year (so far) and has overseen the following freedom-destroying developments as
President:

 Signed into law the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) which authorizes
the U.S. government to indefinitely detain anyone.
 Created a Nixonian-style “Enemies List” that Obama’s cronies use to intimidate political
opponents (e.g., Frank VanderSloot, Wayne Allyn Root, and Sheldon Adelson) through
Justice and SEC investigations, as well as IRS tax audits.
 Crammed Obamacare through Congress with no bipartisan support, which the U.S.
Supreme Court has ruled is one of the largest tax increases in U.S. history (will cost at
least $675 billion).
 Dependence on government is at an all-time high with one in five Americans (more than
67.3 million people) receiving some form of welfare and almost half of Americans
(49.5%) paying zero federal income taxes.
 Enrollment in federal disability programs has skyrocketed under Obama. People who
collect disability checks almost never return to the workforce.
 U.S. infrastructure is crumbling as government spending is diverted to unproductive
welfare entitlements for the few rather than productive investments that benefit us all.
 Obamacare imposes regulations – including price controls – that will stifle healthcare
innovation, increase costs, and reduce employment (thereby increasing dependence on
government even further).
 The food stamp program subsidizes one out of every five U.S. households and under
Obama has become the fastest-growing welfare program. Half of food stamp subsidies go
to families that have received aid for 8.5 years or more. Obama’s most recent federal
budget proposal will keep food-stamp spending far above pre-recession levels even after
the economy recovers. According to the Heritage Institute: “Food stamps is an
expensive, old-style entitlement program that discourages work, rewards idleness, and
promotes long-term dependence.”
 Gutted welfare reform, eliminating the requirement that able-bodied welfare recipients
work or train for work.
 Wasted hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on government subsidies for failed but
politically-connected solar energy (e.g., Solyndra) and electric car (e.g., Ener1) projects.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) concluded that spending $7.5 billion in taxpayer
dollars on electric cars will have “"little or no impact on the total gasoline use and
greenhouse gas emissions of the nation's vehicle fleet.”
 Gave a July 2012 speech in which he ridiculed the hard work of private entrepreneurs in
starting businesses, claiming “You didn’t build that” and that all business success is
thanks to the government.
 Forces Catholic institutions to pay for contraceptive and abortion services that violate
their religious faith.
 Violated the U.S. Constitution’s “Advice and Consent” clause by appointing people to
government agencies without first obtaining Senate consent during a time when the
Senate was not in recess.
 Sided with the Muslim Brotherhood against the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment
right to free speech when the White House pressured Google (NasdaqGS: GOOG) to
remove a video from YouTube and supports implementation of UN Human Rights
Resolution 16/18 which is aimed at outlawing criticism of Islam.
 Appoints a Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist sympathizer who accused Israel of being
behind the 9/11 attacks as an official U.S. representative to a human rights conference.
 Instructed NASA chief Charles Bolden to make his “primary” mission outreach to
Muslim countries and make them feel good about their historic contribution to science.
 After intense public criticism from former NASA officials and others that NASA’s focus
should be on space exploration, not Muslim outreach, the White House backtracked and
said Bolden “misspoke.”
 De-emphasized democracy in foreign policy, cutting funding for democracy promotion in
Egypt by 50% just before Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak -- a strong U.S. ally – was
ousted from office in a military coup, paving the way for the Muslim Brotherhood to take
over – an anti-democratic organization that persecutes religious minorities and has
declared war on the United States.
 The U.S. State Department eliminated the religious freedom section from its annual
report on human rights in foreign countries – for the first time ever.
 Illegally waged war in Libya without Congressional approval, resulting in the ascension
to power of an unstable government with Muslim Brotherhood ties that was put in charge
of U.S. consulate security in Benghazi, resulting in the death of the U.S. Ambassador and
other Americans.

In conclusion, both at home and abroad, under the Obama administration individual freedom is
under attack and government dependency is encouraged. None of this should have come as a
surprise to anyone who had studied Obama’s background:

 His Kenyan father was a communist and non-practicing Muslim who hated the West, and
his Indonesian stepfather was a practicing Muslim who sent him to two schools in
Indonesia where he was registered as a Muslim and attended Koranic classes (not that
there’s anything wrong with that).
 Obama converted from his Islamic heritage to Christianity in the late 80s or early 90s
(conflicting stories) under the tutelage of Jeremiah Wright, his close spiritual adviser for
20 years. Wright – also allegedly a former Muslim -- is both a Marxist and black
separatist who preaches liberation theology and damns both America and Israel, not to
mention being good friends with Louis Farrakhan, the anti-Semitic leader of the Nation
of Islam.
 In 2007, Obama was voted the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate, beating out both
avowed socialist Bernie Sanders of Vermont (No. 4) and current Vice President Joe
Biden (No. 3).
 In 1998, Obama gave a speech in which he praised government policies that “redistribute
wealth” and argued in favor of using welfare recipients as a voting block to get elected.
 In 1991, Obama said he had no problem with restricting free speech to “protect”
minorities.

For more information, check out the following videos: (1) 2016: Obama’s America; (2) The
Hope and the Change; (3) Daylight: The Story of Obama and Israel.

Given Obama’s leftist policies as president and his socialist background, is it any wonder that he
has nurtured a dependency and entitlement culture in America?

 One woman voted for Obama in 2008 because she expected him to pay for her mortgage
and her gasoline.
  In 2009 and again in 2012, thousands pushed and shoved each other in downtown Detroit
and New York City because they thought Obama was handing out “free money” (also
called “Obama money”).
 In 2012, more than 12,000 people in Florida and New Jersey believed a scam stating that
Obama would pay their utility bills.
 In 2012, “huge crowds” in the Bronx stood in line to receive debit cards that allegedly
were pre-paid with $1,000 each in “Obama stimulus money.”
 Obama supporters in Ohio are telling people to re-elect Obama because he is handing out
free “Obama phones.”

How can so many people be looking for handouts of free money? What happened to an honest
day’s work for an honest day’s pay? The culture of dependency is alive and well in the United
States of America -- no need to read Atlas Shrugged because life is already imitating art.

Mitt Romney was speaking the truth when he said that a large number of Americans:

believe that they are victims, who believe that government has the responsibility to care for
them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing to you-name-it. And
the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what.

Romney initially said that 47% of the electorate were beholden to the Democrats because that is
roughly the percentage that pay zero federal income tax, but he’s backtracked from that figure
and rightly so. Many of these people are not exempt from state and local taxes, work for a living,
and don’t receive government welfare. If the percentage of incorrigible government parasites
were actually 47%, Republicans would never win the Presidency because all Democrats would
need is 3.01% of the remaining population to be liberal do-gooders and crazies to win the
popular vote every time. Since Republicans do sometimes win and there are – unfortunately –
more than 3.01% non-welfare nut jobs in the U.S. electorate, the 47% figure is too high. But we
are getting closer and closer to the “tipping point” where the unholy alliance between
government looters and welfare moochers becomes too large a percentage of the population for
producers to have a chance of winning elections.

I think a more accurate percentage of government parasites among the U.S. electorate is Romney
running mate Paul Ryan’s 30% estimate, which includes a combination of the “one in five”
(20%) welfare dependents discussed above and the vast majority of the 16.5% of the U.S.
workforce that are employed by the public sector. I can’t count the number of federal
government employees I have spoken with in the D.C. area who wouldn’t think of voting for
Romney because they are afraid of public-spending cutbacks that would jeopardize their jobs –
or at least their cushy healthcare and retirement benefits -- which are much better than those
available to private-sector employees.

There is a vicious cycle of co-dependency between the government looters and the welfare
recipients (i.e., moochers). Government looters are incented to give public money to the welfare
moochers in order to justify the existence of their cushy jobs with above-average salaries and
benefits (also derived from public money). In exchange for receiving this free welfare money,
the welfare moochers vote for the government looters to remain in office and keep collecting
their government salaries. In other words, both the looters and the moochers are living off of the
money stolen from society’s producers.

Atlas Shrugged Part 2 World Premiere in D.C. Was a Blast

I attended the world premiere of Atlas Shrugged Part 2 in Washington D.C. on October 2nd and
ate more than my fair share of mini-burgers and falafel pitas. If you look at this photo really
closely, you can see me -- I'm the bald guy with glasses looking to my left in the third-to-last row
of the orchestra section (second-seated person on the left-hand side). Besides movie producer
John Aglialoro, Atlas Society founder and screenplay advisor David Kelley, and several members
of the cast, there were famous conservatives that I recognized in attendance with me, including
American Spectator editor John Fund, syndicated columnist Cal Thomas, and “Capitalist Pig”
hedge-fund manager Jonathan Hoenig (who had a very brief non-speaking appearance in the
film).

In talking with fellow moviegoers, I sensed intense pessimism about the upcoming election.
Many were worried that Obama’s welfare state has addicted so many previously hard-working
Americans that the unbeatable “welfare voting block” Obama discussed mobilizing back in 1998
has become reality. The result is that the U.S. political system has reached “the point of no
return” and is now “rigged forever more” towards the looters of society – intent on “sucking dry”
the creative and hard-working producer class in order to feed the inexhaustible dependency of
the indolent and unproductive underclass. Let me emphasize that these moviegoers were not
talking about the nightmare fictional society in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged – they were talking
about real-life America under Obama in 2012.

Mitt Romney, Calvin Coolidge, and Ronald Reagan All Get It

Mitt Romney faced this welfare voting block when he ran for governor of Massachusetts but
somehow overcame it and won. The welfare voting block is even stronger today, however, and
presents an extreme challenge to his presidential candidacy. The problem of unrestrained and
wanton public spending was also the concern of another Massachusetts governor who went on to
become one of our nation’s greatest presidents: Calvin Coolidge. In his 1926 State of the Union
Address, Coolidge said:

Nothing is easier than the expenditure of public money. It does not appear to belong to anybody.
The temptation is overwhelming to bestow it on somebody. But the results of extravagance are
ruinous. The property of the country, like the freedom of the country, belongs to the people of
the country. They have not empowered their Government to take a dollar of it except for a
necessary public purpose. Nothing is more, destructive of the progress of the Nation than
government extravagance. It means an increase in the burden of taxation, dissipation of the
returns from enterprise, a decrease in the real value of wages, with ultimate stagnation and decay.
The whole theory of our institutions is based on the liberty and independence of the individual.
He is dependent on himself for support and therefore entitled to the rewards of his own industry.
He is not to be deprived of what he earns that others may be benefited by what they do not
earn.
No wonder Ronald Reagan admired Coolidge so much! Coolidge was sounding like John Galt
long before Galt was even a twinkle in Ayn Rand’s eye. When Rand emigrated to the U.S. from
Russia in 1926 at the age of 21, Coolidge was president. Perhaps Coolidge influenced Rand’s
objectivist philosophy of the individual?

Voting Needs a Property Requirement to Prevent Moochers

When the United States was founded in the 18th century, voting was restricted to property owners
for very good reasons:

Property requirements were widespread. They reflected the belief that property owners had a
legitimate interest in a community's success and well-being, paid taxes and deserved a voice in
public affairs, had demonstrated they were energetic and intelligent enough to be trusted with a
role in governance, and had enough resources to be independent thinkers not beholden to the
wealthiest class. English jurist William Blackstone wrote in the 1700s:

The true reason of requiring any qualification, with regard to property, in voters, is to exclude
such persons as are in so mean a situation that they are esteemed to have no will of their own. If
these persons had votes, they would be tempted to dispose of them under some undue influence
or other. This would give a great, an artful, or a wealthy man, a larger share in elections than is
consistent with general liberty.

How wise! Only those who own some form of property and suffer the deprivations of taxation
have the integrity and incentive to make sure that public monies derived from taxation are well
spent. Those that pay no tax are much more likely to waste public monies because, hey, it never
was their money in the first place so who cares how it is spent? (that is, as long as a lot of the
money finds its way to them as an entitlement bribe). Some guy in North Carolina named Troy
LaPlante who works for Time Warner Cable wrote a great article on this issue in 2009:

People who receive public tax money for their livelihood are dependent upon the entity from
which they receive their stipend. Therefore, if these same people are eligible to vote, they will
elect those who will most likely continue to support them financially. This is the insidious plan
that has been in place since the 1960's. Enslave people financially and they will vote against the
interest of the masses for their own benefit.

Bottom line: The U.S. needs to bring back a property requirement to ensure integrity in the
voting booth!

Will the Presidential Election Spur Rioting?

I’m not pessimistic about Romney’s presidential chances thanks to two educated election
predictions found here and here, but it nevertheless is hard to overstate the possible violent
reaction the welfare moochers will have if they sense their entitlements are under threat. As Atlas
Shrugged Part 2 movie producer John Aglialoro recently said:
We’ve got generations of people on welfare. That’s not because there weren’t job opportunities,
or education, or anything like that. We’ve got a problem of greed on the level of the entitlement
class.

No less than one of America’s greatest economists and political thinkers – Thomas Sowell of
Stanford University – predicts that a Romney victory would result in widespread riots from the
moochers. Don’t take Professor Sowell’s word for it – take a look at some Twitter threats made
by the welfare moochers themselves.

Life in America Imitates the Art of Ayn Rand

Given that I am writing a movie review on Atlas Shrugged Part 2, you may be wondering why I
am spending so much time on current politics rather than describing the movie. The reason is
that the movie’s importance is in its relevance to the current political reality in the United
States. Obama’s indefinite-detention NDAA and price-controlled government takeover of
healthcare through Obamacare are eerily similar to the actions taken by the movie’s Head of
State Thompson with his economic directive 10-289 that authorizes a government takeover of
the entire economy, confiscates all patents and intellectual property, freezes wages and other
forms of income, and outlaws anyone from quitting his job. The Obama administration’s rough
treatment of political opponents on the Enemies List reminds me of the movie’s Floyd Ferris,
coordinator of the State Science Institute who punishes steel magnate Hank Rearden for not
supplying his miracle metal to the government by: (1) spreading slanderous rumors that Rearden
Steel was defective; (2) filing criminal charges against him for violating the Fair Share Law; and
(3) blackmailing him with photos of his adulterous affair with railroad executive Dagny Taggart.

Another similarity with the movie is Obama’s destructive energy policy which has caused
gasoline prices to hit all-time high record prices. When Obama took office in January 2009,
gasoline prices averaged $1.88 per gallon – now they are double that figure. Although current
gasoline prices of $4 per gallon are nowhere near as high as the $42 per gallon in the movie, the
upward trend is disturbing and can be traced directly to Obama’s hostile regulatory policies
towards the oil & natural gas industry. As Governor Romney’s recent white paper on energy
describes (pp. 8, 12):

President Obama has intentionally sought to shut down oil, gas, and coal production in pursuit of
his own alternative energy agenda. Federal land open for exploration has declined early 20
percent on his watch, and the rate of permitting is down 37 percent. It now takes a shocking 307
days to receive the permits to drill a new well.

He rejected the Keystone XL pipeline, which would have dramatically increased the supply of
Canadian oil to the U.S. market, and now Canada plans to send that oil to China instead.

Lastly, the number of American citizens following John Galt’s lead of “going on strike” by
renouncing their U.S. citizenship is skyrocketing under Obama. According to one lawyer
involved, the reason people are leaving the U.S. sounds a lot like what Ayn Rand could have
written in Atlas Shrugged:
Some are philosophically disgusted at the course our country is taking in all kinds of ways.
They’re making a strong protest of, ‘Enough is enough.’”

What’s even more shameful is that the U.S. government imposes a 15% punitive tax on a
person’s wealth before they can renounce the U.S. citizenship that is sucking their wealth dry to
feed the looter class (i.e., the government confiscators and the welfare moochers they support).
This reminds me of East Germany’s Berlin Wall which made it a crime for its citizens to leave
the country. As tax expert Mario Loyola wrote in the National Review about Facebook co-
founder Eduardo Saverin’s decision to renounce his U.S. citizenship, Saverin’s leaving is the
fault of the Obama administration’s promotion of a looter society:

It is the foolish and counter-productive tax policies of the left that are chasing Eduardo Saverin
to another country, just as they are chasing companies away in increasing numbers. It is even
more foolish to punish those people for leaving — what we should do is stop punishing them
with high taxes so that they stay. We need to compete against the likes of Singapore. Singapore
doesn’t make enemies of its most dynamic entrepreneurs and instead adopts pro-growth policies
rationally aimed at improving everyone’s living standards.

As for Saverin being “ungrateful” in renouncing his citizenship, he might say the same of the
U.S. government. After all, isn’t the U.S. being ungrateful to him by punishing his
entrepreneurship? Obama’s job-killing regulations and the impending sunset of the Bush tax
cuts are going to chase many more people and companies away from America. It’s silly to say
that those people and companies are being ungrateful, when they’re only doing what rational
economics would have predicted.

We should be grateful that Facebook’s IPO is happening in the U.S. at all. Sarbanes-Oxley has
chased most new IPOs by American companies to London and Hong Kong — yet another
masterpiece of self-defeating policy.

No doubt about it, the parallels between Ayn Rand’s world in Atlas Shrugged and current-day
America are striking. So striking, in fact, that money manager Don Luskin recently wrote a book
entitled I am John Galt that matches up Ayn Rand’s heroes and villains with real-life
personalities. Personally, I think the late Steve Jobs of Apple (NasdaqGS: AAPL) is a better
example of Hank Rearden than Bill Gates, but c’est la vie. As for a real-life John Galt, Luskin’s
choice of retired BB&T (NYSE: BBT) CEO John Allison is understandable given Allison’s
philosophical devotion to Ayn Rand’s objectivism, but I view Galt as an engineer, not a financial
administrator.

Movie Review of Atlas Shrugged Part 2

Okay, enough about Atlas Shrugged’s relevance to current-day America under Obama, what
about the movie itself? First, let’s summarize what happened in last year’s Part 1 movie, which
recounted the first part of the book entitled “Non-Contradiction” -- as in, it’s not a contradiction
that the creative producers who are the members of society most responsible for human progress
would suddenly decide to abandon their efforts at making the world a better place. This is what I
wrote in my book review of Part 1:
The movie begins on September 2, 2016 in the not-too-distant future. Europe and South America
have adopted Marxist forms of socialized government and all the countries are now called
“People’s States.” The U.S. isn’t much better off, with government regulation crippling
productive businesses and stifling innovation. The result is a devastating global depression that
has caused massive unemployment, the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling below 4,000, and
gasoline prices spiking above $35 a gallon. High energy prices have caused the airline and
trucking industries to fail, leaving railroads as the only cost-effective mode of transportation left.

John Galt, the inventor of a revolutionary automobile motor that operates on a virtually limitless
natural resource (static electricity in the atmosphere) disappeared after rendering his miracle
motor inoperable. Galt has gone on strike from helping the world to protest the government’s
incessant – and successful --attempts to steal his hard-earned success through confiscatory
taxation and coercive regulations. He has created a utopian oasis in the Rocky Mountains of
Colorado called “Galt’s Gulch” where he invites other creative and successful business and
scientific leaders to live as part of a collective strike against the looters. Throughout Part 1, more
and more of these producers disappear in disgust from the looter society.

Besides the strikers, Ayn Rand’s good guys include railroad executive Dagny Taggart and steel
magnate Hank Rearden, who remain in society to “fight the good fight” against the government
and continue to try to run their businesses. Dagny starts her Colorado railroad called the “John
Galt Line” using Rearden’s miracle metal in an effort to keep energy freight traffic running.
Initially, the new railroad line is a big success. In contrast, her family’s railroad business is
staying afloat thanks to crony capitalism from Washington but is slowly imploding nonetheless
under her evil brother James’ leadership who loses hundreds of millions when the Mexican
government nationalizes the company’s San Sebastian railroad line and the mines it serves.

The U.S. government tries to force Hank Rearden to stop producing his miracle metal because it
would give him an “unfair” advantage over less innovative steel companies. When Rearden
refuses to stop production or alternatively sell his patent to the government, the government
retaliates by starting a disinformation campaign alleging that Rearden’s steel is dangerous –
resulting in Rearden loses many customers. The government also passed antitrust legislation that
forced Rearden to sell off his iron ore mines and buy the ore from much less efficient companies
on the open market at much higher prices, thereby greatly increasing the production cost of his
metal. These added government burdens (combined with many more) cause the John Galt Line
to break down, which had a detrimental magnifier effect on all companies relying on the line –
including Colorado oil shale entrepreneur Ellis Wyatt. Part 1 ends with Wyatt joining John
Galt’s strike and disappearing, but first he blows up all of his producing wells (rendering them
inoperable) and leaves a sign that reads:

I am leaving it as I found it. Take over. It's yours.

Part 2 espouses the same objectivist philosophy as Part 1, so one doesn’t really learn anything
new – the movie just provides more examples of the conflict between the individual and the
government. There are a couple of cool special-effects action sequences in the movie: (1) two
trains collide in a tunnel creating a massive fireball explosion; and (2) Dagny hops into a “Star
Wars”-style jet and chases after Quentin Daniels -- a guy flying in another Star-Wars jet who is
trying to abscond with John Galt’s revolutionary (but disabled) electric motor. The
cinematography in Part 2 is definitely higher quality than in Part 1, which makes sense since the
production budget of Part 2 was $20 million compared to only $10 million last time.

Part 2 Almost Wasn't Made

Part 2 will open in 1000 theaters this time around, compared to only 300 theaters for Part 1. It’s
pretty amazing that Part 2 was made at all given the 100% harsh reviews Part 1 received from 42
out of 42 movie critics and the paltry $4.6 million in total domestic box office sales. Producer
John Aglialoro blames the critics for sabotaging the film, stating that they “prostituted their
profession for politics.” Aglialoro tried to make the best of Part 1’s poor reviews by making
them part of the marketing campaign -- joking that the movie critics were in cahoots with Ayn
Rand’s evil scientist Robert Stadler of the State Science Institute. But it didn’t help. Soon after
Part 1’s release in April 2011, Aglialoro was so discouraged that he said:

I’m having deep second thoughts on why I should do Part 2. Why should I put up all of that
money if the critics are coming in like lemmings?" Maybe I just wanna see my grandkids and go
on strike.

Despite Part 1’s poor financial and critical performance, and despite a crippling $19.5 million
product liability settlement in February 2012 between exercise-equipment maker Cybex
International (NasdaqGM: CYBI) – where Aglialoro is CEO -- and a 24-year-old woman
paralyzed by a Cybex machine falling on her, Part 2 somehow obtained the necessary financing.
I’m glad it did.

According to Atlas Society founder David Kelley, all of the actors in Part 1 were replaced in Part
2 because these actors had “moved on to other projects” and were no longer available. This
explanation may be only partially true. Taylor Schilling, who played Dagny Taggart in Part 1,
has definitely moved on to bigger and better things, starring in The Lucky One and Ben
Affleck’s Argo, which coincidentally opens on October 12th as well. Schilling’s replacement is
Samantha Mathis who isn’t as pretty but more sultry – I don’t think sultry works in the context of
a steely and determined railroad executive like Dagny. Rebecca Wisocky, who brilliantly played
Hank Rearden’s unpleasant wife Lillian in Part 1, also probably wasn’t available for Part 2.
Wisocky’s replacement in Part 2 is Kim Rhodes, who is way too pretty and sexy for the role of
Lillian, who Ayn Rand portrayed in the book as a frigid bitch.

Hank Rearden and Francisco D'Anconia are Important Characters in Part 2

On the other hand, the role of Hank Rearden received a huge upgrade in Part 2 with the addition
of actor Jason Beghe, who is fabulous and much better at playing a tough industrialist than Part
1’s boyish Grant Bowler (sort of like the difference between Sean Connery and Roger Moore as
James Bond). The character of Francisco D'Anconia also received a slight upgrade from Cuban
Jsu Garcia to Puerto Rican Esai Morales. The characters of Rearden and D’Anconia gave the two
big speeches in Part 2, so the acting upgrades were crucial. Rearden was put on trial for violating
the Fair Share Law by selling too much of his miracle metal to fellow industrialist Ken Danagger
without government consent. At his trial, Rearden defends himself this way:
I refuse to accept as guilt the fact of my own existence and the fact that I must work in order to
support it. I refuse to accept as guilt the fact that I am able to do it better than most people - the
fact that my work is of greater value than the work of my neighbors and that more men are
willing to pay me. I refuse to apologize for my ability - I refuse to apologize for my success - I
refuse to apologize for my money. If this is evil, make the most of it. If this is what the public
finds harmful to its interests, let the public destroy me. This is my code - and I will accept no
other.

I could say to you that I have done more good for my fellow men than you can ever hope to
accomplish - but I will not say it, because I do not seek the good of others as a sanction for my
right to exist, nor do I recognize the good of others as a justification for their seizure of my
property or their destruction of my life. Let there be no misunderstanding about me. If it is now
the belief of my fellow men, who call themselves the public, that their good requires victims,
then I say: The public good be damned, I will have no part of it!

D’Anconia – a copper mining magnate, John Galt ally, and former lover of Dagny Taggart --
gives a speech at James Taggart’s wedding on the virtue of money – similar to Gordon Gekko’s
“greed is good” speech in the Wall Street movie, but much better:

So you think that money is the root of all evil? Have you ever asked what is the root of money?
Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to
produce them. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the
looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce.

When you accept money in payment for your effort, you do so only on the conviction that you
will exchange it for the product of the effort of others. It is not the moochers or the looters who
give value to money. Not an ocean of tears nor all the guns in the world can transform those
pieces of paper in your wallet into the bread you will need to survive tomorrow. Those pieces of
paper, which should have been gold, are a token of honor – your claim upon the energy of the
men who produce. Your wallet is your statement of hope that somewhere in the world around
you there are men who will not default on that moral principle which is the root of money.

Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own
destruction. When money ceases to be the tool by which men deal with one another, then men
become the tools of men. Blood, whips and guns – or dollars. Take your choice – there is no
other – and your time is running out.

This concept of money as a paper manifestation of production and an IOU of honor is very
powerful and something that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke fails to appreciate, as
evidenced by his QE Infinity money-printing scheme. One former Fed Chairman who did
understand the morality of money is Paul Volcker, as described in the just-released biography of
his life:

The main problem with inflation is that it undermines trust in government. We, as citizens, give
the government the right to print money and we expect the government not to abuse that right by
inflating. When the government inflates it breaks its pledge and undermines our trust.
John Galt's Electric Motor Sums Up the Message of Atlas Shrugged

The last big theme of Atlas Shrugged Part 2 is not a speech but a thing: John Galt’s perpetual
energy motor. We saw diagrams of the motor in Part 1, but in Part 2 we actually get to see the
motor briefly light up with electricity. Cool! (it still doesn’t work, though). Late in the movie
when Dagny is on a train chasing after Quentin Daniels – who has taken the motor to meet up
with Galt – she meets a hobo named Jeff Allen who tells her the story of The Twentieth Century
Motor Company in Starnesville, Wisconsin where chief engineer John Galt built the electrostatic
motor. When the owner died, his children decided to run the factory based on communist
principles where everyone would: “work according to his ability, but would be paid according to
his need.” The result of the new work rules was disastrous with people understating their ability
so they could work less but overstating their need so they could get more. Those who played by
the rules lost out, whereas the deadbeats who “gamed the system” to the max made out like
bandits. As Allen – who it turns out was the chief foreman of the factory before he became a
hobo -- described it:

The shiftless and irresponsible had a field day of it. They bred babies, they got girls into trouble,
they dragged in every worthless relative they had from all over the country, every unmarried
pregnant sister, for an extra ‘disability allowance,’ they got more sicknesses than any doctor
could disprove, they ruined their clothing, their furniture, their homes – what the hell, ‘the
family’ was paying for it! They found more ways of getting in ‘need’ than the rest of us could
ever imagine – they developed a special skill for it, which was the only ability they showed.

Since John Galt refused to game the system, he got screwed royally until one day he just walked
out of the plant and destroyed the motor he had built to save the world. What makes this
Starnesville story so compelling is that it explains everything about Ayn Rand’s philosophy in a
nutshell:

 Communist utopias don’t work and quickly turn into Communist looting
 Most people are naturally lazy and greedy and will try to minimize work and maximize
benefits if you let them.
 The producers of the world must not sanction looting nor accept their victimhood, but
must fight back – preferably nonviolently through a strike.
 If you treat producers with respect and let them benefit from their hard work, the things
they produce will give back to the world benefits many times greater than what they
rightfully earn as individuals.

This last point is what most critics of Ayn Rand miss. By abusing John Galt, the looters thought
they were winning, but in fact they were losing big time because whatever salary or leisure time
they screwed Galt out of was nothing – nothing – next to the revolutionary electrostatic motor
that Galt was prepared to share with the world. This motor would have solved the energy crisis,
saving the world trillions of dollars and prevented untold social misery. It’s like the old saying
goes: “Give me a fish I eat for a day, but teach me to fish and I eat for a lifetime.” Leftist looters
think they’re helping the poor by giving them welfare with money confiscated from overtaxed
producers, but what they’re really doing is destroying society in a two-fold manner: (1) creating
addictive dependency that hurts the people they are trying to help and ensuring that they will
remain poor beggars; and (2) reducing economic prosperity by discouraging producers from
creating the inventions that could save the world or the jobs that could empower the poor to
climb up into the middle class permanently.

David Siegel, CEO of Westgate Resorts, isn't joking when he says that four more years of
Obama will force him to downsize his company and fire workers:

If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, as our current President plans, I will have no
choice but to reduce the size of this company. Rather than grow this company I will be forced to
cut back. This means fewer jobs, less benefits and certainly less opportunity for everyone.

Whatever You Do, Don't Call Ayn Rand a Libertarian!

The solution is not libertarian anarchy but a society based on voluntary trade between people and
a set of strictly-enforced laws that protect private property rights. Ayn Rand’s utopia is not
libertarian anarchy because individual freedom needs protection from bullies and criminals.
Rand’s objectivism has at its core an intense sense of morality, something libertarians can’t
accept because morality cannot survive without enforcement of rules. Consequently, it is wrong
to think of Ayn Rand as a libertarian. In fact, Rand hated libertarians, calling them “misfits,”
“scum,” and a “monstrous, disgusting bunch of people.” If you’re wondering why both David
Kelley and John Aglialoro are members of the Atlas Society instead of the original Ayn Rand
Institute, it’s because the Ayn Rand Institute “excommunicated” them for speaking at libertarian
gatherings. Such bitter conflicts tend to happen when ideologues worship a personality cult of
the ideology’s founder in addition to the ideology itself.

Decision Time -- Don't Blow It

It is my hope that many people will see Atlas Shrugged Part 2 prior to the presidential election,
which is less than a month away. It’s time to decide what side you’re on: are you a looter or a
producer? It’s either-or, folks. That’s the choice offered up in Atlas Shrugged Part 2 and that’s
the choice we all face on November 6th.

The good news is that the looter society will end one way or another. The easy and less painful
way is to vote for political leadership that will spur entrepreneurship, innovation and economic
growth by rewarding producers. Time is running out, however. The 2012 election may be the last
chance to steer the United States back to its founding principles of “life, liberty, and the pursuit
of happiness” before the welfare voting block and its looter co-dependents in the government
grow large enough through their parasitic consumption to fix all future elections.

A Final Warning and an Eventual Happy Ending

But even if the looters and moochers do win on November 6th, their victory and reign will not
last forever. The John Galts of the world will return to their rightful place on top eventually. As
the great Margaret Thatcher once said:

The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money.
Just like a virus that kills its host ends up dying as well, so too will the looters cease to exist
when there is nothing left to steal. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the amount of
suffering that needs to take place before society hits rock bottom and the looters are overthrown
will be very intense indeed.