If I Ruled The World...

...I would bring the Left and the Right together, with a plot twist at the end.  And to set up such a scenario, I could do worse than refer here to a recent exchange I had with a fellow denizen of the Internet.  I'll let it speak for itself; at least, to begin with.

It started with his posting, at a web site that he runs, the interview that Mike Wallace of CBS's '60 Minutes' fame held in 1959 with Ayn Rand, then-recent author of her monumental salute to Rugged Individualism, 'Atlas Shrugged'.  Our exchange went thusly; starting with my Comment to his blog site, a copy of which he sent back to me with his personal comment to me:

On 28 Feb 2013, at 08:20, WordPress wrote:
>
> > Comment:  [from me, to his blog site]
> > I recall reading 'Atlas Shrugged' right when it came out, when I was over in Korea serving a 2-year tour of duty in the U.S. Army. (We able-bodied young men were subject to The Draft at the time, or I wouldn't have been there. Not my choice; but there you go. At least my government allowed me to be a conscientious objector.) And when I had finished the hefty read, I recall thinking that if anybody asked me my opinion of it, my first impression was to say to them that 'Ayn Rand is an author whom it would be impossible to parody'.
> > 

> > That doesn't mean that I didn't agree with her basic point that no one should be sacrificed to anybody else, or allow themselves to be sacrificed for anybody else; that we have free will, and it must be honored, else life has no meaning, beyond just in and for itself only. The irony is that she thought that that was all there was; all life was all about. But then, she was in active reaction to communism, and had very good reason to distrust ANY power over her and her own reason. (Her 'We the Living' is a good read in this regard.) And now here we are, in her dystopian vision of How It Might Turn Out...beyond parody or not, hers was an important voice in the political arena of our times. Thanks for giving her a fair hearing here.

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Subject: Re: Please moderate: "‘Atlas Shrugged’: It’s Happening Now"
> From: [deleted. for privacy purposes]]
> Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2013 10:00:27 +0000
> To: [deleted, for privacy purposes]

[to me:]
>
> Thanks for your comment on Atlas Shrugged…
>
> The movie is worth avoiding. It’s a wooden, plodding, soporific affair, and an insult to the original story (perhaps by design?).
>
> Could Ayn’s flickering eyes be a symptom of mind-control? Wasn’t she having an affair with Philippe de Rothschild at the time? Isn’t there a conspiracy in here somewhere..?

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[my reply]

I don't know about this affair business with PdeR that you mentioned in your blog as well; never heard of it.  Something about that idea, of "a conspiracy in here somewhere," doesn't compute, with her well-established (and as she said in the iv w/Mike W) belief in no 'special deals'/against monopoly capitalism, or ANY interference by the state in the free exchanges between free people.  She really was - IMHO - a 'true believer': What you saw was what you got.  No compromise.  

An anecdote here.  Many years ago (well; talking about Ayn Rand, it would be, wouldn't it) she had a weekly column in the LA Times, which at the time had begun to move away from its total, all-out conservative slant and had some liberal op-ed columnists as well.  (It was a good read of a paper: one got the spectrum of pov.  This happened under the stewardship of the owner's son, who went to the liberal U of Calif at Berkeley, and had a different take on politics from his father; the latter of whom, e.g., believed that the U.S. Postal Service, like any business, should be privatized. An unheard-of thought at the time.  So Dad probably had a hand in bringing Ayn into the columnar fold, if there is such an expression.  Well; there is now.)  And she was just as uncompromising in her columns as she came across on the Mike Wallace iv.  (I personally found it rather refreshing.  We get so MUCH of the bleeding-heart liberal propaganda...)  Came the day and a certain column, and I can't remember how I found out about what was in it, because someone on the editorial board censored it.  Just dropped it.  (She had mentioned in it how one of her 'heroes' was a 'working-class' writer named Mickey Spillane, who wrote tough-guy, private-eye paperbacks with lots of guns and sex and terse, tough-guy talk in them.)*  Furious - 'Censor ME, will you; you miserable little liberal toad', or with words to that effect - she tore up her contract - to that effect - and refused to send any more columns.  I mention this, because, although she obviously could have used the money, AND the prestige, of being in one of the country's leading newspapers, she was a woman of her principles, and would not stomach such behavior.  This was, in short, not a woman who would countenance the use of force over anybody.  We are free men and women; period.  If PdeR had told her of his and his Illuminati buddies' plans to take over the world, and turn everybody into serfs to them, she would have thrown back the covers, kicked him out of the bed - whether hers OR his - and told [I should have said here, in keeping with the theme, 'snarled at'] him to take a hitchhike to hell, you lousy, sniveling son of a bitch.

And you can take that to the bank.

 Stan

* A classic Mickey Spillane line: Did you ever see the film 'Marty', starring Ernest Borgnine, about a butcher in The Bronx?  The screenwriter, a working-class-dialogue pro named Paddy Chayefsky, had some of his buddies sitting around in his living room when he came back from work, and one of them is reading aloud from one of Spillane's novels, titled (I think) it was) 'I the Jury', where, right at the end, the dame drops her clothes whilst standing in front of Mike Hammer (Spillane's main character), and Spillane has Hammer observe, simply, "She was a real blonde."                             

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What more can I add to this little anecdotal exchange with a friend, as regards the subject, of this blog's title...

His point in carrying the iv was that, in short, 'It's Happening Now'.  And yes, it is: a monumental confrontation looming between collectivism and individualism - although not quite.  On the one hand, the Left, there is, indeed, the desire for collectivism, in the form of socialism - some being sacrificed to others, in state-determined 'equality' (what Ayn Rand abhorred, from her individual-stifling experience in communistic Russia).  But on the other hand, the 'Right', there is another version of collectivism that has raised its ugly head (again), called fascism - an unholy alliance between the corporate world and government, in controlling the populace from that side of the political aisle.  And caught between the two forces is Joe and Jill Average - the middle class.  Whose side I am on; insofar as standing against the power of the state over the individual is concerned.  But wait - there's the plot twist right at the end; remember???  

And that comes in with the elimination of money.

As for the rest of the story...

...well; you'll just have to read it.

So to speak.

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