Rand might hate this review, but it's who I am
I just left the movie version of Ayn Rands’ “Atlas Shrugged”…part ll; it was obvious that there was more money available for this production than in the case of Part l. But in both productions I saw an opportunity for the author to reach out from the grave and carry her message to a generation that has little or no knowledge of her work.
As I looked around the almost empty theater I was saddened by the lack of attendance. It was my only hope that those watching had seen part 1, and had not read the book. I prayed as I watched the movie, asking God to help instill the message of this production in those attending across the country. I asked my Lord to give the viewers the power of empathy that they may feel in their hearts the pain portrayed on the screen. I wanted the audience to experience something that could only come from witnessing the deterioration of something so great that its demise would bring a pain that demanded a call to action in all those watching. I was tempted to address the small crowd, to give voice to my own thoughts, and to beg that they raise their own voices in a call to arms. I wanted to say something that would be carried out of that theatre and shared by everyone in attendance. But I am no orator, no wordsmith that could ever inspire the kind of response I was praying for. My impotence had me leaving the theatre in tears I could not stop, with a feeling that I had failed my great country at a time when every voice of opposition to our current state should take wings and spread the word that our own future was on display in the movie I had just watched. I felt like a coward for not giving flight to my thoughts, for not shouting at the top of my lungs that our future had been written in 1957!
For those who are unfamiliar with Ayn Rand, she escaped the Russian revolutions that seemed to occur back to back in the early 20th century. Before leaving Russia she experienced the violence, the hunger, the confusion, homelessness, and brutality that were the hallmark of the birth of the Soviet Union. Ayn Rand bore witness to the ravages of war, depersonalization, and the loss of individuality that is Communism. Her flight from Hell, as she might put it, landed her in America finding herself ensconced in Hollywood Society where she did script rewrites, and whatever she could to contribute and earn her way with people that included Cecil B DeMille. Ayn Rand found her utopia; it was in the United States, fueled by capitalism, and driven by American individualism and exceptionalism. Rand’s first major writing success came in her 1943 book “The Fountainhead”, but what is considered her greatest literary achievement came in her 1957 tome “Atlas Shrugged”, which brings us back to the subject at hand.
“Atlas Shrugged Part ll” successfully conveys the failure of all that is part of the Obama Agenda. It is a clear display of the internal rot that is the core of socialism and government control of anything beyond the limits so clearly defined in the American Constitution and Bill of Rights. It paints a clear picture of all that is wrong with large government, crony capitalism, and the failure that is always the end result of government control of the marketplace. The dichotomy that is total government control of the marketplace at one end and pure capitalism at the other is presented clearly and concisely by Rand, and is taken to heights others haven’t imagined, or were too frightened to express before. When Obama told every entrepreneur in America that “They didn’t build this!” he was playing a part that Rand had written in more than one book. There is nothing the government can do that can’t be done better and more economically by an entrepreneur that “Didn’t build this!” Anyone with a lifetime experience that is limited to working in government is also limited in the ability to create an entity that is efficient, functional, and profitable. In government there is no need for efficiency, functionality, or ever profitability. When working with money that is taken from the masses there is no concern for those elements in anything that is created. When the money runs out, the government functionary simply applies for more taxes and his shortage is made up. This is the fundamental truth of government, and it is why people stood in line for hours just to purchase a roll of toilet paper during the heady days of Soviet domination of Eastern Europe. It is what Ayn Rand witnessed before her escape to America, and it is the underlying truth in all her writing.
Every voter in America should see “Atlas Shrugged” parts 1 and 2, and then they need to read the book. If they did, there would never be another socialist elected in the United States of America again, in fact it could well spell the demise of the Democrat Party as we know it today.