Tag: 2:7

October 28, 2022 – Atlas Shrugged 2:7

October 28, 2022 /

If you pay attention to the title of each chapter, it kind of gives you insight into what the chapter is going to be about. This one is titled, “The Moratorium On Brains”. More on that in a minute.

The last chapter was titled “Miracle Metal” which was about forcing Reardon to give up his intellectual property. Reardon metal will be renamed Miracle metal. Makes sense. The chapter before that was titled “Account Overdrawn” which was the production threat that lead to the initiation of Directive 10-289. The next chapter is titled “By Our Love”… I wonder what that is going to be about?

As with all chapters in this long book, there are multiple things going on. The title of this chapter refers to the incident in the second half of the chapter. An entitled bureaucrat is travelling on a Taggart train to a political event. The train is stopped at a station in Winston, Colorado because of track conditions and derailment. The bureaucrat insists that this is some kind of political ploy and demands that the train continue.

Taggart employees afraid of changing rules, sliding scales of justice and unclear authority are afraid to do the right thing. Ultimately, the parties involved barrel to their death. Hence, some knew this was going to be the case, the others refused to believe that this was a real problem. Either way, the result was the same.

Normally, I would pick that part of the chapter to draw some analogy to current day issues. But, it is so easy to kill sitting ducks. That is why we have the phrase in the first place. Make no mistake, this is the major theme of the chapter. However, I am going to talk about the first part of the chapter instead.

We have heard a little about Ragnar Danneskjold. Apparently, he was a peer of Francisco D’Aconia in school and a general enigma. The word on the street is that he is also a fearless pirate. In this chapter Henry Reardon meets Danneskjold and it was rather interesting.

We grow up with the paradigm that the story of Robin Hood is just and correct. Danneskjold bills himself as the anti-Robin Hood. And his reason being is that we have our Overton Window in the wrong perspective. It’s not the rich stealing from the poor that is the problem, but the poor stealing from the rich.

Huh. I had never considered to perspective that the fairy tail is actually a classist agenda. I really think that there are points on both sides here. On one hand, there is no doubt that this country has a large welfare state. That is certainly stealing from the rich (the government that is). Does the rich actually steal from the poor?

I would contend, that both sides steal from the middle class. One, the middle class is the largest socioeconomic group. Two, the rich are the ones writing the rules (read loopholes) as well. They can afford to hire attorneys and accountants as well as build tax shelters on a routine basis. The poor of course have nothing to steal. The middle class has no time to fight, not enough assets to protect and not enough insight to know that they are getting screwed.

To make things worse, class warfare works perfectly. By keeping the middle class siding with one side or the other, they are so busy fighting in their hypnotic trance for the side they believe represents them that they are missing the fleecing that is happening.

For instance, the “Trump Tax Cut” that occurred in 2017. Without the SALT deduction (that was the deduction for mortgage interest), I now pay $10,000 a year more in federal income tax. I have heard business owners say that they now have a significant reduction in taxes (35 -> 21% on profits as well as a increased expensing allowances to lower profits). Nothing especially precludes me from becoming a business owner, but that doesn’t pivot on a dime. My point is, business owners are more likely to be high income earners, maybe rich. There are a lot more middle class home owners that fall into the strictly middle class ranges and the burden was shifted with that tax change.

End Your Programming Routine: I cannot be convinced that the rich do not pay their fair share. If we are only talking about income taxes maybe, but all the businesses certainly donate, pay, employ, etc. That is certainly fair share in my book. The truth of the matter is, as long as we all have equal access to take advantage of the rules, then who can really complain? Honestly, what I think the middle class needs to focus on is not getting rooked into picking a side when either choice looses.

June 18, 2021 – 1984 2:6-7

June 18, 2021 /

So this week I read two chapters…what? That is right, two; primarily because the first one was only three pages long and the second one was six pages. Since we are gone today I am writing this in a hurry without a lot of time to really analyze what I wanted to say. I have kept this one pretty close to the facts without wandering around too much.

It may not have been one of the more impactful analysis I have performed, but there are some pretty powerful quotes particularly in chapter 7. These two chapters work nicely together. Chapter 6 has Winston finally meeting O’brien and arranging a meetup. Chapter 7 is his thoughts about and the consequences of that meetup.

Be aware of the deliberate action- When O’brien met with Winston, it was the first time that they had ever spoken in earnest. O’brien’s deliberate actions of speaking and writing his address was described in a theatrical manner. The conversation was innocent enough and in line with all expectations but the circumstances were not. As a result, Winston is aware that this is the beginning of the end.

Winston suspects that taking this step of meeting O’brien is going to result in his demise. He also knows that he is going to do it. It seems that the only thing that is not entirely clear is what side O’brien is really on. The implications of such is the duration before Winston disappears.

“The terrible thing the party had done was to persuade you that mere impulses, mere feelings, were of no account while at the same time robbing you of all power over the material world. When once you were in the grip of the Party, what you felt or did not feel, what you did or refrained from doing, made literally no difference.”

Talk about a powerful quote from chapter 7. This is the quintessential description of the left/right dichotomy. It doesn’t matter which side you choose, playing the game is a losing proposition because either choice lands you in the system of control. This transitions into the second concept of the post.

To simply live is to be dead- In multiple places in the chapter, Winston references freedom over life. He says that the ‘Proles are alive, we are dead’ and ‘the object is not to live but to be human’. There is a strong connection being drawn between personal choice and freedom. This is why Winston is getting the feeling that the end is near because he is making those connection and realizes that he will never have the choices.

There are many anecdotal supporting stories from refugee camps or soldiers in battle or drug addiction where the people are alive but the circumstantial trauma has them devoid of emotion. I suppose that is my way of trying to relate something other that the post apocalyptical world of 1984.

End Your Programming Routine: 1984 is turning out to be a complicated work that is more than a bastion of liberty. That being said, these two chapters play right back into the cautionary tale of totalitarianisms. As much as I am not an emotional person, emotion is essential to humanity and by proxy life, buying Orwell’s Kool-aid.