I’m a huge fan of Ayn Rand, in particular her greatest work “Atlas Shrugged.”
But I’d never read her first major success, “The Fountainhead.” Still haven’t.
Instead, I cheated Saturday evening and watched the 1949 movie version of “The Fountainhead,” starring Gary Cooper as the iconoclastic architect protagonist Howard Roark.
It was time well-spent, particularly since the movie aired on the Turner Classic channel and was uninterrupted by commercials.
This was typical Rand fodder, a tale of the individualist succeeding against the collectivist society.
Roark’s court experience in the movie, and successful outlasting of a system arrayed against him on every level, was a precursor to the John Galt character of “Atlas Shrugged.”
Rand’s heroes were men who did not compromise their standards for the sake of expediency. They clung to beliefs even as those about them turned a blind eye to the ridiculous injustices of the societies in which these men lived – not indefinitely in the case of Galt.
Rand was an optimist, or perhaps more likely a wishful thinker, in writing and seemingly believing that rights of the individual would and should prevail in the long run over bastardized visions of socialists.
It is likely in 2022 that we could solve our energy crisis if only positive and negative poles could be attached to Rand’s coffin in order to generate electricity as she spins in her grave.
Each day evidence pours in that the collectivists, those who would sacrifice the rights of individuals on the altar of big governments and corporate control, are winning.
Consider:
Dutch farmers protesting arbitrary limits on nitrogen and animal herds by environmental extremists in the European bureaucracy have gotten company in the form of farmers in Italy, Spain and Poland taking to the streets. The message of Italian farmers is “We are not slaves, we are farmers!” But bet on those greenie bureaucrats in the long run, despite their obvious insanity.
Clueless Joe Biden went to Saudi Arabia, neatly forgetting his vow to make that kingdom a pariah state. Joe was there to exchange first bumps and plea for greater oil production, hoping desperately to lower energy costs and stem a mid-term election wipeout for his fellow leftists. The Saudis will pump more oil. Can you say strange bedfellows?
Nancy Pelosi has another conflict of interest. Even as the Speaker of the House pushes legislation, $50 billion for computer chip manufacturers, she just happened to purchase $8 million of Nvidia stock. What does Nvidia manufacture? Computer chips. Hmmmmm.
Other examples are numerous.
Oil sales from our Strategic Petroleum Reserve to a Chinese firm with former ties to Hunter Biden have been reported.
Despite ongoing insistence that all COVID-19 vaccines are safe, an online source maintained by the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control has more than 1.3 million reports of vaccine complications and 29,000 deaths.
Governmental scaremongers are desperately trying to drum up panic over new COVID strains, not to mention Monkeypox. Lockdowns, here we come.
It all has the stench of collectivists trying to break down individual freedoms and choice while manipulating public opinion.
Roark and Galt would have resisted. Will enough Americans follow their lead to make a difference? Doubtful.
Sam Ross Jr's site 