Inverted

We talk about Ayn Rand's works from time to time here because they're so visionary. Before 1950 she had given us a glimpse of sorts into the future (from her standpoint), a glimpse that ties in so well with the the world we live in today. In my mind, there is only one word that can truly describe what she saw, and the route we, as society, have chosen for ourselves today.

Inverted.

One of the first things we learn in emergency services, one of the first things that doctors learn, is a simple little premise; "First, do no harm." Refusal to treat or tend to those in need can bring legal problems for those who refuse to do so. It is considered unprofessional and unethical to refuse to render assistance to those in need. And yet we are seeing a growing trend of students who are studying medicine to choose whom they will NOT treat:

From The Sunday Times
October 7, 2007
Muslim medical students get picky
Daniel Foggo and Abul Taher

Some Muslim medical students are refusing to attend lectures or answer exam questions on alcohol-related or sexually transmitted diseases because they claim it offends their religious beliefs.

Some trainee doctors say learning to treat the diseases conflicts with their faith, which states that Muslims should not drink alcohol and rejects sexual promiscuity.

A small number of Muslim medical students have even refused to treat patients of the opposite sex. One male student was prepared to fail his final exams rather than carry out a basic examination of a female patient.

Inverted.

One has to wonder if they are learning just enough medical knowledge to treat Jihadists.

And the left in our country stand up to SUPPORT these people. Excuse me, I have to ask, didn't our nation lead the FIGHT for women's rights? Did we not, along with Great Britain and a handful of other European nations, decide that women had equal rights as men, and equal opportunities? How, then, can liberals, who are so hell bent for leather that everyone be "equal" can support an ideology and a religion that deals in the subjugation of women and is so close minded that it won't allow for individual beliefs and freedoms that are contrary to Islam?

Inverted.

Our nation was founded, in part, as a rebellion of a people against on overbearing, gluttonous system of government that had relied too heavily upon taxation to support itself. Our founding fathers new and understood the principles that if people are to survive, if a nation is to thrive, if individuals are to achieve, they must be able to control their own destinies, their incomes, their livelihoods. No nation in history, no country, no kingdom, no system of government, ever taxed itself into prosperity. And yet where are we today? Heavily taxed, again. Consider, if you will, just the simple little task of driving a vehicle. First, there is the sales tax for the vehicle itself. To legally put a vehicle on the road, it has to have license plates, which is a form of a tax, a wheel tax in some municipalities, the driver must be licensed, there is a tax for the license itself, the car has to have fuel, which is heavily taxed by both the state AND the federal government. Then you have to take toll roads into consideration, where they exist. Figure about five to ten dollars for each time you crank your engine before you even take it out of park. Seriously, take a ten dollar bill out of your wallet every time you crank up your engine and lay it aside. My figures, of course, are not scientific, they are a VERY rough estimate, but you get the idea.

That's just to drive to the grocery store/school/work/wherever. I won't even MENTION the income tax, property taxes, sales taxes, ENTERTAINMENT TAXES (we actually have that in TN), tobacco taxes, alcohol taxes, firearm taxes, ammunition taxes, taxes for hunting and fishing licenses, taxes for utilities...

Shall I go on?

Inverted.

The individual was once celebrated in this nation. Those who achieved, those who created jobs, those who rose to the top, those who inspired. How many of you out there despise Bill Gates and Donald Trump for the fortunes they've amassed because they're good at what they do? How many people does Microsoft Corporation employ, providing jobs for people? How many people work for Donald Trump at his casinos, his hotels, his offices? How many people out there vilify those who produce, who achieve, who toil and have the AUDACITY to enjoy the fruits of their labors? Hillary Clinton would have those people give up a part of what they have earned "for the common good." Wouldn't the common good be better served if such individuals were encouraged to continue creating jobs in the private sector rather than expanding the welfare state to be even more all encompassing than it already is? This socialistic mindset has been growing and invading our society and our mindset since the beginning of the last century. It failed in Russia, it failed in Eastern Europe, it has failed in Britain and the Commonwealth, and yet we are heading pall mall and helter skelter right down the road of socialism, rather than continuing on the path of rugged individualism that our nation was founded on.

Inverted.

Our nation was established with a system of checks and balances to keep any one branch of government from becoming more powerful than any other; laws were and have been set in place to protect the individual. Our most recent sitting Congress has made attempt after attempt to undermine the power of the office of the President, the President controls the appointment of judges to federal legal positions (these postings are lifetime appointments), and the courts make rulings on their interpretations of what the law should be. Our nation has a constitution that sets the standards and determines what is to be and what is not to be. Our constitution is daily under assault by the very leaders we have elected to protect it, by the very leaderships we have entrusted to uphold it, by the very people who swore oaths to defend it. We are, it is said, a nation of immigrants. This is true, in spirit, perhaps, but by and large the majority of the populace of this nation are people who were BORN here, on this soil, on these shores, within our national boundaries. So then, why are we so willing to allow those who enter this nation illegally to stay here, to take jobs from our citizenry, to create a welfare system that requires more money to be thrown into it via the tax system which is already overburdening the American citizenry. Why do we allow our nation to be dictated to by the United Nations, an organization that has clearly and consistently shown itself, as a body, to despise our nation and our way of life? Where is that taste for personal liberty and freedom that our founding fathers felt so clearly and so hungrily that they were willing to fight and die for it?

Inverted.

Our Constitution was established to protect the rights of the citizenry of this nation. It was not built nor designed to be a free get out of jail card for our enemies and those who violate our laws by remaining in our nation, in our country, illegally. It was intended to protect the rights of U.S. citizens, not non-citizens. The leader of a nation that is a declared enemy of OUR nation is invited not only to address the United Nations on our shores, but to speak at one of our universities as an invited guest.

Inverted.

Our Constitution clearly states that Congress shall make no laws which respect any single establishment of religion; the reason for this was that the founding fathers had experienced, in England, a national Church supported and sanctioned by the government. In England, the reigning monarch is the head of the Church of England. Our founding fathers saw the wisdom of our nation not going down that road. There is NOTHING in the Constitution, however, that says that there is to be an absolute separation of church and state. Revisionist historians would have you believe that many of our founding fathers were either atheists or "deists" and did not necessarily believe in the concept of God. There were some who fall into that category, however, not all of them fit that description. A great many of them were religious and upstanding individuals who held the beliefs that patriotism and religion were complimentary to one another, not counter to one another. We are at a point, now, in our society, where the founding belief structure of our nation is under assault from within. Christianity itself is under assault. Belief in anything absolute, in any morality that comes from a higher belief than ones self is questioned. Prayer in school, references to Christ in the work place, such things have become subject and fodder for law suits. The Folsom Street Fair, however, is acceptable.

Inverted.

Patriotism was once defined as standing up for our nation, for our rights, for our beliefs. Patriotism was a willingness to put ones self in harms way to defend our way of life. Patriotism was once something to be cherished, it would stir the heart of even the most stony individual, it was the tear in the eye of the veteran at the playing of the National Anthem at the raising of the flag. We once stood at attention with our hands over our hearts as the song was sang or played. I was recently at a rodeo, the National Anthem was played as the flag was raised, and I was appalled at the number of people talking and moving about during it. Patriotism is now defecating on our flag, denouncing our nation as evil and vile, promoting immoral activity, defending the rights of those performing and seeking abortions, defaming those who promote standards of behavior that are not deviant.

Inverted.

I could go on. I could continue to list things here and point out the inverted thinking that has become so prevalent in our society. I could go into the legal system and point out how many rights the accused and convicted have in contrast to how few rights the offended and victimized by crime have. I could go further into our medical fields. I could go much, MUCH further into politics and political law, corporate law, so forth and so on. But I think, maybe, I've inspired thought in what I have chosen to include in this.

Personal achievement is a virtue to be cherished, to be inspired, to be promoted, not to be condemned and belittled. To achieve greatness is to uplift self and humanity. Lincoln's great lie was "all men are created equal." Lincoln was a politician, in the right place at the right time for history to remember him as being great. He was a man. His personal achievements, his work, his perseverance, led him to greatness. I say we are NOT all created equal. If we were, we would all be able to play basketball as well as Michael Jordon did. We would have been no Sultan of the Swat, as Babe Ruth was labeled. Lou Gehrig wouldn't have been baseball's Iron Man. We would all be able to create code and make computers like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. We would all have the audacity and creativity in war of Forrest, Rommel, Patton, and Napoleon. We would all write as well as Shakespeare, draw and create art as great as da Vinci or Michelangelo. We would all be as intellectual as Socrates, Plato, Archimedes.

We are all born with our own talents and abilities, and we are all given the opportunities to achieve greatness. Jealousy, class envy, undermining personal achievement leads to the downfall of all that our ancestors worked to create in this nation. We show a great, great disrespect to ourselves, and to those who fought for our rights and our liberties, we disrespect ourselves by not standing up to those who would see our nation fall.

To borrow from the liberals, we disrespect our children by not making sure that our nation stands free for them, as it was for our generation.

Ayn Rand quotes:

An individualist is a man who says: 'I will not run anyone's life - nor let anyone run mine. I will not rule or be ruled. I will not be a master nor a slave. I will not sacrifice myself to anyone - nor sacrifice anyone to myself.' "Textbook of Americanism"

Inflation is not caused by the actions of private citizens, but by the government: by an artificial expansion of the money supply required to support deficit spending. No private embezzlers or bank robbers in history have ever plundered people's savings on a scale comparable to the plunder perpetrated by the fiscal policies of statist governments. "Who WIll Protect Us From Our Protectors"? The Objectivist Newsletter, May 1952

It is not justice or equal treatment that you grant to men when you abstain equally from praising men's virtues and from condemning men's vices. When your impartial attitude declares, in effect, that neither the good nor the evil may expect anything from you - whom do you betray and whom do you encourage? "How Does One Lead A Rational Life in An Irrational Society," The Virtue of Selfishness

The socialists have a certain kind of logic on their side: if the collective sacrifice of all to all is the moral ideal, then they wanted to establish this idea in practice, here and on this earth. The arguments that socialism could not and would not work, did not stop them: neither has altruism ever worked, but this has not caused men to stop and question it. Only reason can ask such questions - and reason, they were told on all sides, has nothing to do with morality, morality lies outside the realm of reason, no rational morality can ever be defined. "Faith And Force: The Destroyers of the Modern World," Philosophy: Who Needs It

As far as the issue of actual pollution is concerned, it is primarily a scientific, not a political, problem. In regard to the political problem involved: if a man creates a physical danger or a harm to others, which extends beyond the line of his own property, such as unsanitary conditions or even loud noise, and if this is proved, the law can and does hold him responsible. If the condition is collective, such as in an overcrowded city, appropriate and objective laws can be defined, protecting the rights of all those involved - as was done in the case of oil rights, air-space rights, etc. But such laws cannot demand the impossible, must not be aimed at a single scapegoat, i.e., the industrialists, and must take into consideration the whole context of the problem, i.e., the absolute necessity of the continued existence of industry - if the preservation of human life is the standard. "The Left: Old And New," The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution

Justice does exist in the world, whether people choose to practice it or not. The men of ability are being avenged. The avenger is reality. Its weapon is slow, silent, invisible, and men perceive it only by its consequences - by the gutted ruins and the moans of agony it leaves in its wake. The name of the weapon is: inflation. "Egalitarianism And Inflation," Philosophy: Who Needs It

When "the common good" of a society is regarded as something apart from and superior to the individual good of its members, it means that the good of some men takes precedence over the good of others, with those others consigned to the status of sacrificial animals. "What is Capitalism?" Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal

Amazing it took a woman born in Russia to understand the American Dream so well.

Points to ponder from:

Once and Always, An American Fighting Man

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