THE GREATEST MORAL AUTHORITY in history, as well as the greatest example of that authority, is undoubtedly Jesus of Nazareth. He was born into a world where "an eye for an eye" was the culturally-mandated response to any offense. His gift to mankind was to supersede that maxim with a far more difficult moral imperative: Love your neighbor as yourself.

For two thousand years Jesus' followers have struggled not only to follow his difficult invitation, but to discern exactly what "loving" your neighbor actually means. Does treating my neighbor as I'd like to be treated include buying him lunch? After all, I'd like someone to buy me lunch, and with the hundreds of people I know and whom I consider "neighbors" (in a lunch-buying kind of way), I might never have to buy my own lunch ever again. Sounds good so far.

But what happens when I have to return the favor? If everyone expected me to buy them lunch, then I'd go broke. Every day, I'd have to pony up the cost of a lunch (and I'll bet most people wouldn't consider a burrito at Taco Bell a sufficient expression of my love for them) and I'd go hungry unless someone else was feeling generous and bought me lunch. (Now Taco Bell sounds downright proletariat -- Red Lobster here we come!)

It's easy to see how "loving" your neighbor and still managing to get lunch yourself requires that your neighbor not be someone who would take advantage of your "love." That aside for the moment, this brings me to my main point: the Great Divide.

We have all heard the phrase, "The world is made up of two kinds of people . . . " and what follows is an example of a dichotomy: those who like dogs and those who don't. Those who like cats and those who cats like, etcetera.

But one of the greatest (and apparently, the most evenly split) divides these days is politics. When President Obama claims a mandate to impose his policies on America, he's really only talking about the five percentage votes by which he won. Five percent is just 1/20th of 100 percent and cannot, by any terms, be called a "mandate." But, as Rahm Emmanuel says, "Never let a crisis go to waste," and that slim five percent has become carte blanche for the Dems to completely reorder life in the good ole U.S.A.

But if the mandate is insufficient, no worries. What really gives Democrats the "right" to make these changes is their wonderful and unassailable self-image. After all, they see themselves as morally and intellectually superior to everyone else. Morally superior because they take Jesus' charge seriously: they love their neighbor so much that they want to do everything for them, not only buying them lunch, but dinner, breakfast, late night snacks, pay for their school, cash in their clunker, give them a mortgage they cannot afford, and now even guarantee inadequate and expensive healthcare. (Remember that kid who asked Obama to get him out of his McDonalds grind? Done and done! Isn't He lovely?)

This manifestation of love is, in a Democrat's mind, proof positive of his moral superiority. His intellectual superiority is assured by the term he now cloaks himself in: "Progressive." Anyone who is not progressive must be . . . well . . . regressive: a troglodyte, a throwback, a BAD person, morally as well as intellectually.

All well and good, if you accept the premise that tossing out thousands of years of history and proven cultural mores is "progressive." Of course progressives (who used to be liberals until that label became tainted by the Law of Unintended Consequences, more below) usually cite examples of their progressivism in racial terms (no matter that Lincoln was a Republican and that many southern Democrat senators voted against the Voting Rights Act of 1964), but ignore what fifty years of their loving special interest politics have done to the black community: 70% out of wedlock birth rates and nearly half of all young black men in America in jail, largely for crimes against other black men.

Nevertheless, a Democrat/former Liberal/now Progressive is unconcerned with outcomes. The Professor in Chief is all about high-minded theory and postulates. All that really matters is intent. The Law of Unintended Consequences has no force in His universe. When someone (usually a throwback Republican) points out how $3 trillion (an all-too familiar number nowadays) thrown at "poverty" over the last few decades has only made the plight of the poor worse, the Annointed One and his minions merely say, with a straight face, that if we'd spent $4 trillion, the problem would have been solved. Nanner nanner.

Of course, this is proof positive of their uncircumscribable love for their fellow man. Except for the fellowman who has to finance their limitless largesse. He's the guy who gets screwed, because Democrats always make someone else buy the world a Coke. Congressional Democrats are currently exempting themselves from their vaunted healthcare plan -- their own healthcare will not be tampered with, because the taxpayers are already footing the bill. If it's not broke, right?

So not only do Democrats believe you're too incompetent to know what you want for lunch, they want to take you out to a tony restaurant, order steak and lobster -- for both of you! -- and then expect you to pull out your wallet and pay for it, as you fawningly thank them for taking you out to lunch. And they will do this every day of your life, if you let them.

I don't think Democrats are morally and intellectually superior to Republicans. But in terms of pure chutzpah, they have no equal!

Feel the love!

I'VE BEEN THINKING about how much things change, and yet how little they really do. In other words, things appear to change because the particulars differ, but the underlying principles at work remain the same.

Case in point: the election of the least-prepared president in the history of the country prompted millions to writhe in an ecstasy prompted by His presence and the promise of change they really, really believed in. We're now seeing that change: an unprecedented restructuring of America toward statism and away from personal responsibility.

But Tuesday's elections proved how short Obama's coattails really are, though he inexplicably remains personally popular. Why? In a previous post I posited that many white Americans voted for Obama primarily because he was black, in order to prove to themselves and others that they were not racists, which of course, proves them to be exactly that, because racism by definition includes taking race into account when judging a person. Yet these same devoted voters stayed away from the polls in droves this last week, showing the true fervency of their love for the Dear Leader.

China and India, the world's two most populous nations, decline to be bound by the sort of legislation now wending its way through the U.S. Congress in the form of "cap and trade" restrictions on CO2 emissions. These two ascendant behemoths are responsible for over one-quarter of the "poisonous" (so says the EPA) carbon dioxide emissions on the planet. English PM Gordon Brown has declared that the world has just thirty days to prevent an environmental catastrophe if the proposed Copenhagen emission standards are not adopted worldwide.

Yet facts are stubborn things. There are more polar bears now than there were fifty years ago. The world has been demonstrably cooling for the last ten years. So, "global warming" has been cynically replaced by "climate change" as the Left's latest mantra. After all, who can dispute that climate changes? A low incidence of sunspots over the last decade is ultimately responsible for the cooling, but this takes mankind out of the equation and makes his attempts to protect Mother Gaia laughably impotent. As a result, only one percent of Americans rate "climate change" at the top of their concerns. (Wages and jobs predictably hold that position.)

Western religion is in decline, while childish, tantrum-throwing Islam rises steadily, due to low birthrates in the West and high Muslim birthrates everywhere. It is only a matter of time until Islam becomes the world's dominant religion. Christianity is on the wane except in the impoverished and uneducated Third World, and then only for the most strident evangelical sects. Church attendance in America is at historically low levels and is practically nonexistent in Europe. More than half of Americans judge themselves "spiritual but not religious."

What all these events and trends have in common is this: the ardent acolytes of politics, religion, and science prove a universal and innate human search for meaning. Historically, meaning was found through the three professions: the church, medicine, and the law. All three are now in decline. Given the reprehensible behavior of so many religious leaders, who can trust someone who claims to speak for God? Doctors until recently enjoyed great respect, but the healthcare debate has revealed that their vote (e.g., the AMA on Obamacare) can be bought as cheaply as anyone else's. And no examples need be given for lawyers, who are barely more popular than Congress.

So what happens when traditional sources of meaning and purpose evaporate before our eyes? The church is passe and uninspiring, with few answers that satisfy modern believers. Politics is a cesspool of needy liars and false messiahs. Its latest incarnation, the nanny state, is insufficiently adult to inspire respect and obedience. A nanny, after all, is not a parent; she's a teenaged babysitter. Can we believe in a government that takes from those who produce and gives to those who do not? Environmentalism is supposed to be based on science, yet supercomputer models of climate change are as wrong as a pocket dog in a tutu. Mother Gaia doesn't even know we exist. What then, can we believe in? What is the next religion?

Man is a spiritual being and religion, no matter how it's clothed, is an innate expression of his spirituality. But in today's world, what religion can truly satisfy our natural need for union with the Ultimate?

When no religion is believable, will we still believe in God?

Or will we see the following headline on the cover of TIME: "We're all Nihilists Now."

LAST WEEKEND I VOLUNTEERED at the Park City Jazz Festival in Deer Valley, Utah. It has become a tradition with me: excellent music, the joy of helping out, the beautiful mountain scenery, not to mention the respite from the August heat of the Salt Lake valley.

In that milieu, I remembered again of the power of music and yet how easy it is to let it slip silently out of our lives. The music that moves me most is jazz, because of its heady improvisation, soaring instrumentality, and ability to envelop the listener in a moment of time that elicits meaning not through lyrics but from the unspoken and often inarticulated feelings inside the listener's heart -- an emotional journey sketched by the musician but colored in by the listener's personal reaction to the song. And when I find myself in that moment, forgotten memories recovered and given voice, I shake my head in wonder that I allow myself to exist outside that moment for so much of my day.

When I was eight years old, I was riding my bike home. They had been clearing a lemon grove for a new park, and had dug many shallow trenches for sprinkler lines. My buddies and I had been playing Army Man all day in those trenches, wearing plastic replicas of GI helmets and hurling hard green lemon hand grenades at each other like the dog faces in "Combat," our favorite TV show.

On that particular evening, tired and dirty from a day of saving the world, I was pedaling home on my red Schwinn. I had my little transistor radio rubber-banded to the gooseneck handlebars and was turning a corner when I heard my first Beatles' song: "Camp By Me Love." The tune and words were so catchy that by the second time the chorus rolled around, I knew it by heart. (Of course I found out later that it wasn't a song about a guy asking his girlfriend to go camping, but something about love being beyond price. But at that time I knew nothing about love but a lot about camping, so that's how I heard it.)

When I got home I picked out the melody on our spinet piano. I knew nothing about chords, so I just tried to find the bass note that went with each change of the melody. But within an hour I had basically figured out the song. I was ecstatic and from then on, I was a musician. I heard something on the radio and reiterated it on piano. It wasn't long before I was rearranging chords to make new songs, often using the same lyrics I'd heard on the radio, often to such tin-eared results as "Camp By Me Love." Nevertheless, by the time I finished high school, I was a fair interpreter of popular music. I formed a band with some friends and 1975 was a glorious year when Zarahemla played church dances, parties, and youth gatherings all over southern California. We even entertained unrealistic fever-dreams of a recording contract.

My best friends have always been musicians, and all of them are more talented than I. I was a sponge, soaking up information that I'd not gotten in my formal training, which ended for the most part when I entered high school and had no time for piano after classes, sports, the beach, and my job. My fellow musicians introduced me to the finer elements of music theory, culminating in the clever "mu" chord popularized by Steely Dan. When I realized that this jazz chord made their music seem at once complex and accessible, I shook my head in wonder. How can adding a second tone to a triad do that? Further, how can a melody evoke emotion?

Music brings me back in time better than any other memory aid. I remember putting Billy Joel's astonishing 52nd Street album on the turntable and dully realizing that this guy was better than Elton; after all, he wrote the lyrics and the music! I could name dozens of songs and albums that literally stand like bright signposts in the landscape of my life, often associated with people, sometimes with places, and always with powerful emotions, sometimes as a result of the song itself, sometimes as a remarkable synchronicity when a song comes on the radio that exactly mirrors what I was feeling at that exact moment. Hall & Oates' "I Can't Go For That" featured a rudimentary computerized drum sound that literally made me exclaim, "It's changing! Right now! Music is changing!" And indeed, from that moment in 1983, drum machines came on board, some would say to sad results. And I would love to argue the point, not to convince you, but to talk with you about music, which is one of the few things in life worth arguing about, because it always results in sharing, in increased appreciation for a song or band or style you didn't previously like, and a full heart. Not many conflicts result so often in large smiles, knowing nods of the head, and hearty handshakes when the argument is over.

So there I stood at the side of the stage, wearing my yellow SECURITY tee shirt, facing the audience on a Sunday evening in Deer Valley, listening to Al Jarreau sing one of his most famous tunes, his face radiant and his happy demeanor contagious. Al et al. helped me find the groove and I was right in the center, swaying slowly from side to side, eyes half open, hands behind my back, chin lifted, rhapsodic. "Mornin' mister radio/mornin' mister Cheerio/mornin' sister oriole/need I tell you everything is fine?"

The sun was setting over the pine-clad canyon wall and the grassy hillside before me was full of people, all in that same groove, heads nodding, smiles on every face. And when he sang the rising melody, "I know I can/like every man/reach out my hand/and touch the face of God!" a chill ran up my spine and tears started in my eyes. I was in it, that evanescent moment when music fulfills its greatest promise: it was drawing me closer to the Infinite.

Did I mention it was also raining at the time?

AUGUST, NORMALLY A SLEEPY MONTH FOR POLITICS, is sizzling with political heat all across America. Elected representatives are holding town hall meetings and getting an earful from the normally somnambulant populace, which has apparently beginning to awake to Washington's perfidy. It's about time.

As a resident of the most conservative state, I have lamented the lack of political excitement in my own backyard, but then I went to the Board of Education meeting inaugurating a new school district which was carved out of the largest school district in Utah. Salt Lake valley is divided economically east and west. The east side is established; the west is growing. While schools are aging on the east side, new multi-million dollar state-of-the-art schools are springing up on the west side. Thus, property taxes in the Jordan School District have been high and going higher, yet most east side tax money goes to construction on the west side. East side denizens didn't like paying for schools ten miles away from the run-down schools in their own neighborhood, so last November the Canyons School District was born.

My own taxes took a jump, even as my home fell in value by almost 15%. To find out why, I attended the first Canyons school board meeting. It was interesting, and like all government-sponsored programs, expanded from the planned two hours to four. Why? Because scores of my neighbors, who appeared relaxed and agreeable before the meeting, burst into angry outbursts and shouts at the utterly stunned board members sitting before us.

The issue was simple: the Board, repeatedly patting itself on the back for its boldness and creativity, showed us an almost unintelligible PowerPoint presentation designed to inform us as to the mechanics of the new tax scheme, all of which resulted in what they proudly pointed out several times was a zero-increase budget. Oh, what a good boy am I!

Following the presentation, taxpayers each got three minutes to express their opinions. And here's where democracy fell apart. People asked, quite rightly, how the Board could be considering a tax scheme identical to the previous year when everyone in the audience was making do with less this year. The diminishing value of our properties aside, many people used their three minutes to talk of jobs lost, increasing utility expenses, and across-the-board belt tightening. They were often interrupted by applause from the sympathetic and increasingly angry crowd.

During these diatribes, the Board members sat stone-faced and unresponsive. Not a word was uttered in defense of the proposed tax scheme and no question put to them by a taxpayer was answered. Many of them simply worked on their personal computers. Some took notes. But not one of them engaged with the petitioners or responded directly to their concerns.

At the end of more than a hour of public outrage, the time was turned over to the Board. Though they addressed some of our concerns, they spoke among themselves, not to us. It became clear that they had already made up their minds before the meeting ever began; public opinion had not swayed them in the least. At the end of their internal discussion they voted unanimously to approve the tax scheme as proposed.

In disgust, half the audience got up and left.

Then the surreal process was repeated. The CFO spoke in vague terms about budget particulars, this time sparing us his pointless PowerPoint. Public response was again allowed. I got up and asked how is it that the Board refused to respond to questions put to them in real time, by real people? They simply stared at me, saying nothing. Not even the simple, irrefutable logic of "when the pie is smaller, you cannot have the same sized piece as before," seemed to penetrate their closed minds. I closed my remarks by noting that one of the Board members had stated that 85% of their budget was tied to district salaries and benefits. Had they considered the unfortunate but clearly responsive option of reducing salaries and costs across the board or cutting administrative positions? My question was answered with silence.

In the Board discussion that followed public comment, a Board member revealed that salaries and benefits of District employees were set by state law; the Board had no power to change or alter them. So, in a school district with a budget of $200 million, the Board has the power of the purse over just $30 million.

I shook my head. What, then, were we doing there? More to the point: what was the Board doing there? What impact could they possibly have on the District other than rubber-stamping the administration's proposed budget? It seemed like high school all over again: people running for meaningless offices for no other purpose than to advance their own popularity. The budget of the Canyons School District was unanimously approved by the Board.

That's when the rest of us left.

On the way home, I reflected on what democracy has devolved to. All the elements of possible success are there: engaged people with opposing interests striving toward important goals. Yet not a single moment of true dialogue occurred during the entire four hour enterprise. People made presentations, people commented on the presentation, Board members talked among themselves and then voted as they had planned to vote all along.

This new "democracy" is no doubt designed to avoid the messiness of traditional democracy: heated discussions and angry accusations, which can result -- if people's minds are open -- in solutions to problems. So there we sat, two hundred people in the same room, and not a minute of real person-to-person communication in four hours. But from the Board's perspective, the evening had been a success: they got the budget they proposed, they heard from their constituents (though they apparently didn't listen), and the pressure in the boiling tea kettle of public anger was reduced. Success, right?

Not to the almost two hundred tax payers who attended, their taxes raised, their usable income reduced, and their opinions ignored.

One good thing came out of the evening for me: a growing feeling that democracy in America is undergoing a painful rebirth. As more and more of us attend these public gatherings and we see how ridiculous the process became while we were busy living our lives and leaving politics to politicos, we are forming new opinions about what's wrong with our country and how to fix it. We of the silent majority, who routinely solve problems in our own lives and live within our own budgets, are beginning to demand the same from our elected officials. And if the stunned, disbelieving looks on the Canyons School Board's faces are any indication, then a sleeping giant may be awakening.

You may diminish this sort of grass-roots awakening as mere Astroturf and decry it as staged and unimportant. But from what I saw last Tuesday night in Sandy, Utah, you do so at your growing peril.


P.S. The next day, a local television station quoted a District spokesman on the Board's unanimous approval of the proposed budget: "We believe it is responsible fiscal policy for Canyons constituents in a very difficult budget year. We wanted to be responsive to the needs of our public."

I kid you not.

"What good is reading the bill if it's a thousand pages and you don't have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read the bill?" -- John Conyers (D-MI)

Fortunately, Congressman Conyers, some people have read House Resolution 3200 and some of them are lawyers and here's what it means, with the page numbers and a layman's translation:

• Health benefits will be limited on an annual dollar basis (29). This means rationing.
  
• Instead of you, your doctor, or even your insurance provider, a government committee will decide what treatments or benefits you receive (30). Enjoy standing in line at the DMV? Then you'll love this!
  
• Health services must provided to everyone (50-51). "Everyone" obviously includes illegal aliens, as well as those who simply do not wish insurance coverage.
  
• Government will have access to your financial records to ascertain eligibility (58). The end of financial privacy.
  
• Union retirees and their families will receive special benefits under the plan under Section 164 (65). A sop to the Unions that elected the democrat majority. AARP also benefits, due to an exclusion specifically tailored for it.
  
• A national "healthcare exchange" will be established to bring private plans under government control (72). This will destroy private insurance coverage, for no private company can compete with the federal government.
  
• Under the Exchange, plans which do not meet certain requirements will be excluded (84). And they set the standards, excluding their competitors: private insurers.
  
• The Exchange will set benefit levels and limits (85). More rationing.
  
• "Outreach" activities will be conducted to entice people to participate in the new healthcare plan (95). Here's where ACORN and other approved NGOs come in.
  
• Governmental immunity applies to lawsuits regarding payments or methodology in healthcare (124). Presently, you can sue your insurer. Say goodbye to that right.
  
• Physicians' income will be regulated by the government, regardless of the physician's special training or abilities (127 & 241). This is akin to paying everyone in the NBA the same salary.
  
• Employers must automatically enroll employees into the public option plan (145). No choice of insurers.
  
• Employers must provide healthcare insurance for part-time employees (147). Tens of thousands of small employers will now go out of business.
  
• Employers who have a yearly payroll of over $400,000 who fail to enroll in an Exchange-approved plan will be be fined 8% of payroll (149). That's a small business: just 10 employees at $40,000 a year.
  
• Employers who have a yearly payroll between $250,000 and $400,000 who fail to enroll in an Exchange-approved plan will be fined 2%-6% of payroll (150). That's as few as five employees: Mom & Pop businesses will fold.
  
• Individuals (including the self-employed), who refuse to enroll in an Exchange-approved plan will be taxed 2.5% of their income (167). Zero choice, both in coverage or participation.
  
• Nonresident aliens who refuse to enroll in an Exchange-approved plan will not be taxed (170). But they will nevertheless receive the same healthcare as you do.
  
• Costs for cancer treatment will be leveled among hospitals (272). The Mayo Clinic must charge no more than any other hospital for their superior expertise.
  
• Physicians are limited in ownership of hospitals (317). Thousands of small and rural clinics will fold.
  
• "End of life" consultations are mandated (424-428). A government bureaucrat will advise you that since your healthcare is rationed, here are the ways you can die.
  
• The end of life consultation may result in a court order regarding life-sustaining treatment (429). The government may even order your death.
  
• State "family planning" services will be regulated by the federal government (774). Any hope of state sovereignty over abortion law will be terminated.

That's nowhere near all, but you get the idea. As even the supporters must admit, this law will greatly increase the government's incursion into previously private healthcare decisions, including access to your health records and finances, doctors' decisions, and even the way you die, not to mention the wholesale takeover of more than one-quarter of the U.S. economy.

As a lawyer myself, I instantly recognized the legal-speak of the Bill, which was undoubtedly written by a liberal think-tank intent upon converting America to a socialist state. They know that healthcare "reform" is a sure-fire way to fundamentally change the American economy, making the population dependent upon the government, and thereby ensuring that those dependants will vote democrat for the foreseeable future. When over half the public learns it can vote itself free money (or free benefits), then what is to stop them from doing so? The other 49% must shoulder the cost, for as long as they choose to do so. Will Atlas shrug?

The Troubled Assets Recovery Plan (TARP), a 1500 page bill that spent close to $1 trillion, was considered too important and pressing for our representatives to read it before enacting it. The Democrat leadership in the House waived the traditional 72-hour posting requirement and required members to vote on the bill within 24 hours. Of course no one read the bill and of course it's been a great success, hasn't it?

And now, we have those same leaders in the House insisting that members of Congress not only not bother to read this bill (with many more far-reaching provisions than the TARP bill), but vote on it immediately without discussion or debate before the August recess.

Why? Because of what the Bill contains, plain and simple.

Now you know more than John Conyers. But that didn't surprise you, did it?

 

AYN RAND'S ATLAS SHRUGGED IS NOT SO MUCH A NOVEL as it is a dramatized philosophical treatise, and its redundancy and length is no mistake: Rand is attempting to instill a respect for laissez faire capitalism, no easy task in these days of hate-the-rich anti-corporatism.

Published over fifty years ago, Rand's book was at first received cooly by critics and public alike. Her editor, humorist Bennet Cerf, asked her to trim the 1200 page leviathan. Rand replied, "Would you edit the Bible?"

Arrogant? Perhaps, but arrogance is often just poorly-received competence, and Atlas Shrugged is a perfect example thereof. No, people do not speak like this; Rand's characters do not so much dialogue as speechify. Indeed, John Galt's sixty page radio address near the end of the book may be the longest speech ever written or given, but it wields great power and unimpeachable authority. It is a must read, even if you cannot slog through the entire book.

Atlas Shrugged is an important book and feels especially apropos in the current political climate, where statists wearing liberal sheep's clothing are attempting to fundamentally change the American (and thus, the world) economy. Obama is often compared to FDR, both for his rhetoric and agenda. It can be safely said that the uber-nanny state Obama is attempting to impose upon us got its start as Social Security back in the 1930s, a program originally intended to help the widows and fatherless, but which has expanded (as all federal programs do) into a nationwide retirement program. And it has become the single most expensive item in the budget and is poised to bankrupt the economy, just as cradle-to-grave socialism is threatening western Europe, which is currently turning away from its destructive tenets.

Obama's healthcare "reform" has now morphed into another 1984-style double speak term: "healthcare insurance reform," and will grant the federal government unprecedented control over one third of the U.S. economy. It will be run like all government agencies, with massive bureaucracies, powerful and intractable federal employee unions, unimaginable waste, and a cut-throat competitive edge that will destroy private competition. Who competes with Medicare? No one. Who offers flood insurance in Louisiana apres Katrina? Only FEMA.

Despite its challenging length, Atlas Shrugged is a simple story. Rand's "Objectivist" philosophy divides people into three classes:

• Producers: those farsighted individuals who see a need, create a product, sell it on the open market, and reap a reward;
• Looters: those who choose not to create, but who seek to take the rewards of creation from the producers, by force, if necessary; and
• Moochers: those who use guilt and need as levers to pry profit from producers instead of producing anything themselves.

In Rand's alternate America (this is actually a science fiction novel, due to the presence of futuristic metal alloys and unprecedented energy-producing machines), producers -- tired of the ingratitude of a public that reaps the rewards of the producer's industry and effort -- decide to go on strike. (Indeed, The Strike was the working title of the book.) When the world's economy predictably comes to a grinding halt, it is left to the producers to remake the world in their image: where a man can, through his effort alone, envision, create, and profit from his labors without anyone making demands upon him.

What enrages critics of the book is that it so forcefully rails against what has become a fundamental tenet of modern capitalism: the "duty" of producers to "give back." Bill Gates has used the term; every industrial magnate has. They "give back" because they have been "lucky" and therefore the unspoken implication is that their wealth or prosperity or even their positive self-esteem is unearned. They must "disgorge their profits" for the "benefit of all." Come on, you know you've said this yourself as you write the check to the United Way.

Rand does not condemn charity; she condemns the charitable obligation imposed on producers by looters and moochers. Only producers produce; looters and moochers do not employ producers -- they rob them. The government, whose only Constitutional imperative is to protect us from foreign intervention and maintain a civil society at home, has, in Rand's philosophy, no right whatsoever to steal from producers and give to those who cannot or will not produce. Producers, by the very nature of their life's work, do an immense amount of good for the world: they invent new things, employ people to manufacture them, pay dividends to investors, provide consumers with time-saving and life-improving products, and raise the standard of living of the entire world. Society should be grateful for these people instead of condemning them or taking from them at the point of a gun (the tax code).

What do looters and moochers produce? Nothing, save bureaucracies dedicated to taking from producers and distributing to non-producers. Rand said it well in the book in a conversation between an industrialist (Hank Reardon) and a high-seas pirate (Ragnar Danneskjold):

"I'm after a man whom I want to destroy," [said Danneskjold]. "He died many centuries ago, but until the last of him is wiped out of men's minds, we will not have a decent world to live in."

"What man?"

"Robin Hood."

Reardon looked at him blankly, not understanding.

"He was a man who robbed the rich and gave to the poor. Well, I'm the man who robs the poor and gives to the rich -- or, to be exact, the man who robs the thieving poor and gives back to the productive rich."

"What in blazes do you mean?"

"If you remember the stories you've read about me in the newspaper, before they stopped printing them, you know that I have never robbed a private ship and have never taken any private property. Nor have I ever robbed a military vessel -- because the purpose of a military fleet is to protect from violence the citizens who paid for it, which is the proper function of a government. But I have seized every loot-carrier that came within range of my guns, every government relief ship, subsidy ship, loan ship, gift ship, every vessel with a cargo of goods taken by force from some men for the unpaid, unearned benefit of others. I seized the boats that sailed under the flag of the idea which I am fighting: the idea that need is a sacred idol requiring human sacrifices -- that all of us must live with our work, our hopes, our plans, our efforts at the mercy of the moment when that knife will descend upon us -- and that the extent of our ability is the extent of our danger, so that success will bring our heads down on the block, while failure will give us the right to pull the cord. This is the horror which Robin Hood immortalized as an ideal of righteousness. It is said that he fought against the looting rulers and returned the loot to those who had been robbed, but that is not the meaning of the legend which has survived. He is remembered, not as a champion of property, but as a champion of need, not as a defender of the robbed, but as a provider of the poor. He is held to be the first man who assumed a halo of virtue by practicing charity with wealth which he did not own, by giving away goods which he had not produced, by making others pay for the luxury of his pity. He is the man who became the symbol of the idea that need, not achievement, is the source of rights, that we don't have to produce, only to want, that the earned does not belong to us, but the unearned does. He became a justification for every mediocrity who, unable to make his own living, has demanded the power to dispose of the property of his betters, by proclaiming his willingness to devote his life to his inferiors at the price of robbing his superiors. It is this foulest of creatures -- the double parasite who lives on the sores of the poor and the blood of the rich -- whom men have come to regard as a moral ideal. And this has brought us to a world where the more a man produces, the closer he comes to the loss of all his rights, until, if his ability is great enough, he becomes a rightless creature delivered as prey to any claimant -- while in order to be placed above rights, above principles, above morality, placed where anything is permitted to him, even plunder and murder, all a man has to do is to be in need. Do you wonder why the world is collapsing around us? That is what I am fighting, Mr. Reardon. Until men learn that of all human symbols, Robin Hood is the most immoral and the most contemptible, there will be no justice on earth and no way for mankind to survive."

Incendiary? Yes. Incorrect? No.

Now, lest I be misunderstood as just another greedy rich guy, I will say that I make an average living. I still get out of bed every day and I struggle to pay my bills. But unlike many, I do not blame others for my lack of wealth. I revel in their prosperity and work hard for my own. I do not begrudge the rich their riches. They employ me; no beggar ever gave me a job. And when I engage in charity, it is not only because I see a need, but because I wish to give. I receive a benefit in the transaction, a feeling of goodness, of rightness. The other's need is secondary. But above all, I give because I choose to, not because I am forced to.

Ayn Rand was prescient. One of Obama's campaign promises was to disallow the charitable tax deduction. This in itself is in line with Objectivist philosophy: the government should not reward (or punish) people for charitable giving. Giving should be its own reward. But the consequence of denial of this tax deduction will be that people will give less and the government, seeing increasing need everywhere, will do what it has always done: it will impose upon us a "charitable tax" in order to satisfy the perceived need. So charitable giving will no longer be voluntary but a requirement. After all, we're all in this together, aren't we? Mark my words.

I close with John Galt's famous words:

"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."

If you are shocked by this statement and believe it is heartless and cruel and selfish, then you have not yet read Atlas Shrugged. You should, before it is banned by the State.

Who is John Galt? I am.

IN GREEK MYTHOLOGY, Cassandra (literally, "she who entangles men") was a woman so beautiful that Apollo granted her the gift of prophecy. But when she did not return his love, he cursed her so that no one would believe her predictions. Thus, the title Cassandra is given to voices in the wilderness that prophesy calamities that no none believes will come to pass. Until they do, of course.

Today, I will do a little prophesying myself. First, my bonafides: I am an internationally-published author whose books deal with spiritual and social themes. I am interested in the state of the heart and soul, and I have spent most of my adult life examining and pondering our culture and times, and then writing about them.

Over the past three months I've been promoting a new book in Costco and Sam's Club stores, where people buy everything from turkeys to televisions. And not a few books. My signing table is usually set up at the end of the book aisle, a great placement, as most shoppers pass me as they head for the food section. Behind me, in recent weeks, are pallets of Stephanie Meyer's four-volume hardbound "Twilight" series, priced at $45, a stiff price to be sure, but a steal when the suggested retail is $75. It's a steal all right, but I fear the theft is of the virtue and judgment of the largely female readership of these popular books.

The author, Stephanie Meyer, is following in J.K. Rowling's footsteps: an instant millionairess, having sold 40 million copies of the books worldwide. But Rowling's appeal was limited largely to young boys, while Meyer's Bella Swan is obviously designed to balance the equation and draw in young girls. Bella is a young, chaste girl who falls in love with a vampire, who acts as not only the object of her romantic yearnings, but as her protector and savior.

Vampirism, from its inception, has always had obvious sexual connotations. The drawing the blood of a docile or sleeping female through a "kiss" on the neck by a powerful male results in her falling under the vampire's thrall, and her own soul is now drawn into the darkness of murder and mayhem that delimits the vampire existence.

But not Twilight. In this artful remaking of the myth, the vampire (Edward Cullen) drinks only animal blood and so he's "safe" for Bella. This, of course, is another sexual euphemism: Ed and Bella don't go "all the way." Bella has no idea what Edward does outside of her presence beyond his assurances that he drinks only animal blood, and, like the young girl she is, she naively believes him. Of course, in the end, their "love" is consummated, as "love" always is. But it's done so cleverly that the readership -- primarily, pubescent girls and their mothers -- see it as "love" and not an act of sexual violence, as vampirism always is.

Perplexed by the books literally flying off the shelf behind me, I asked a woman in her mid-forties what her take was on the phenomenon. She said her two teenaged daughters read the series, and so she read it as well, "to get an idea what was going on." She looked thoughtful for a moment, then smiled: "I think it's a bit of the 'bad boy' thing . . . women are attracted to the bad boy. And since the young vampire doesn't drink human blood, he's not really that bad, is he? Plus, he's nicer to her than the mortal boys her age."

So here was a woman who seemed, for all intents and purposes, to be a good mother who was involved in her daughters' lives to such an extent that she even reads the same books they do. But she saw nothing wrong with vampirism, so long as Edward didn't murder (read: rape) Bella. And since Edward is "nicer" to Bella than the troglodytes on campus, Bella can be excused for succumbing to Edward's charms.

Horrified, I reflected on the state of parenting in the world today. Instead of guiding children toward literature that uplifts and instructs, parents now join their children in reading not only childish and soul-destroying books, but they assuage any resulting guilt by actually believing they are "involved" in their children's lives . . . that they are "sharing" something.

Something like a needle, I think.

But it's been thus for years. The Harry Potter phenomenon was no different. This children's book was also read widely by adults, who, fleeing the increasingly unacceptable violence and language of "adult" fare, retreated into the safe world of a child's story about magic. That itself is not alarming; most people understand that magic is pure fantasy. But the subtextual messages of Harry Potter are what concern me. Unlike the time-honored "hero's journey" of literary tradition going all the way back to Odysseus, Harry Potter was a new kind of hero: he started out a hero and shows little true emotional growth throughout the books. His in-born talents are apparent the first time he stretches out his hand and the broom pops up from the ground. He's a natural! Of course he is, his parents were remarkable wizards themselves -- it's genetic! Throughout the books, people meet Harry and exclaim, "My God! You're Harry Potter!" as if that explains everything about the lad. He simply has to "discover" his talent and use it. No growth (besides puberty) is thrust upon Harry. He is destined to be a great wizard because he already is.

I find this lack of personal development in a protagonist alarming. Our own lives are nothing but challenges that reveal our character; challenges that make us stretch and grow. But Harry is already a great wizard, and, magically, he will show himself to be such. This kind of magical thinking might save Harry's life in the books, but it's death for us in the real world. We mere muggles are doomed to have to learn and grow, to actually mold ourselves into something worthwhile. Our birthright is a mere potential; it's not an exclamation of divine right.

But it doesn't stop there: George Lucas, off to such a stirring start in the first three Star Wars movies, completely destroyed the Force itself when, in the fourth film, Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn informs Anakin's mother that tiny, microscopic organism -- mitoclorians -- are the real source of the Force, and Anakin has a remarkable concentration of them in his blood! No wonder he's going to grow up to be Darth Vader! It's inevitable!

So instead of Luke Skywalker's journey toward adulthood and heroism, where he grows by fits and starts, unable to prevent the remote from zapping him when he has the blast shield on his helmet lowered or failing to see Darth Vader in himself in the Dagobah cave, his father Anakin comes out of the womb fully prepared to be a Jedi Master and later, Darth Vader. Of course, those darned mitoclorians. Too bad I don't have any in my blood.

These shortcuts to power (Harry Potter and Anakin Skywalker) are dangerous lessons to teach our children, for those of us not living in the fantasy world of books and movies know there is nothing more crucial to success in life than achieving -- through our own blood, sweat, and tears -- actual competence, whether it be our ability with a light saber or a magic wand. (And thus far, no one I know on this planet has any talent with either!)

To the mix of incompetent arrested-adolescent adult males spawned by Rowling and Lucas, Stephanie Meyer is now adding young women infected with the dangerous notion that it's okay to date the Edward Cullens of the world, so long as he doesn't drink their blood. What Twilight says about sex is obvious to any girl who has ever been in the backseat with a boy: "It's okay," he coos, "we won't go all the way." What he's really saying is that they won't go all the way tonight. But eventually they will, and it will be she who bears the consequences of his "love": destroyed self-esteem, STDs, and perhaps even pregnancy, while he finds another victim down the road. More and more Bella Swans of the world will be left behind with shattered lives. Good job, Stef.

Congratulations, Mom, on reading Twilight with your daughter. When she turns thirteen, maybe you two can get matching tattoos.

Just call me "Cassandra."

BARACK OBAMA WON THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION 53-46. Given the paroxysms of delight experienced by many who voted for him, in explaining his win I'm going to discount his policies in favor of his "presence," especially since he has moved to the center (even center-right on some issues) since the election. Those who hoped he'd start pulling our troops out of Iraq on January 21st must be sorely disappointed, but apparently, most are still in the spine-tingling thrall of his beatific beingness.

I tend to vote issues, not people. Domestically, George W. Bush was far less a conservative than I had hoped. I thus found it easy to distinguish between what I wish he had done and what he actually did. Thinking people can do no less; "feeling" people can do no more.

But the orgiastic Obamaniacs have no such healthy bifurcation of belief. They will blindly believe in the Messiah until the moment they lift him up on the cross. One wonders what it will take for them to turn on him? Not immediately declaring a loss in Iraq? No. Not immediately closing Guantanamo? Nope. Failing to raise taxes on the reviled rich? Huh-uh. Escalating the Afghanistan war? Not at all. Nothing he's done seems to sway his beaming believers. Nothing yet, at least. Perhaps if he goes on Rush Limbaugh's show.

So why are Obama supporters such true believers? Why would the electorate that voted him in not then turn on him (or at least point out his hypocrisy) when he flatly refuses to keep his campaign promises? The answer is simple and devastating: They are racists.

 

Since his failure to keep his word on the issues is not enough to discourage their support, only one reason remains for their fawning worship: it must be his race. Obama is black (well, half-black anyway) and those who voted for him and who still support him (his popularity as of this writing is a strong 67%) must have voted for him because of his skin color. It certainly could not be his enthusiastic campaign promise-keeping.

 

Racism, by definition, is allowing skin color to be a rationale for either liking or disliking another person. In our history we've seen ample evidence of "negative" racism. But the gushing, weeping, hallelujah-I-have-seen-the-light sort of "positive" racism has previously been low-key. Certainly, affirmative action is "positive" racism; a racism intended to reward a person for nothing more than the color of their skin. Way back when, Colin Powell had the Republican presidential nomination his for the taking due to this sort of postitive racism. His behavior since that time proves that he is a RINO, a "Republican In Name Only." The GOP dodged a bullet when it came to Powell.

 

The election of an unaccomplished, half-term senator with a flimsy resume as a "community organizer" can only be explained in racial terms. He was black (sort of) and thus, the percentage of the electorate that responds to dark skin color (as opposed to his true heritage, which is half black and half white) eagerly voted him in.

 

Therefore, if one took the percentage of the nation that voted for Obama (53%), one could make the powerful case that America is indeed a racist nation. It remains to be seen, however, how many of his formerly adoring acolytes will continue to applaud his essence when he, by necessity and political instinct, turns from his campaign promises with the fluidity he shows on the court as he rolls off a pick toward the hoop. If they still faint in his sublime presence, the jury must return the only verdict possible:

 

America is racist.
 

I HAD AN INTERESTING CONVERSATION recently with a friend. We were comparing our different belief systems. While cordial, the conversation began to get heated when I pointed out several long-standing, bigoted beliefs inherent to his religion, which he explained as one of those things that could not be answered, because "God's ways are not our ways." The following exchange occurred:

HERE'S HOW I DEFEND THE TRADITIONAL DEFINITION OF MARRIAGE: