Atlas Shrugged - The Motion Picture

You have read my rants encouraging one and all to read Rand. Now it is a live motion picture! Oh... it won't be in movie theaters or on DVD; it is happening in Washington DC right now.

And I am not alone in my view. It was in the Wall Street Journal Day. I still want you all to read Atlas Shrugged, but if you don't have time, at least this article gives you a good summary.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123146363567166677.html

on Principles & Practices

In a good long afternoon talk with my friend “Publius” the other day, we came to very solid conclusions about politics and history and how it relates to discussions with others. 

1.       In general, good people can agree on principles.  For example, we can all agree that the poor and needy should be taken care of.  That is the principle of love and charity.  We may not agree on the practice of how we should take care of the poor and needy.

2.      A vast majority of Americans don’t really care.    They are either too lazy to decided what they really think is important or they feel overwhelmed by the process and therefore avoid it. 

Political campaigns are not aimed at people like me who have already determined what they believe are the practices of good government.  Campaigns are directed to those that don’t care.  That’s while political campaigns are so filthy.  Any cheap method of getting “undecided” people to lean your way is taken.

3.       In discussing politics with people, it is almost impossible to get people to agree with you that indeed you do both agree on fundamental principles.  People just want to debate practices, 'cause its easy.  Even more challenging is to get people to explore internally why how they arrived at the conclusions they have.  To me, this is a higher level of developing one’s intellect than simply spouting off manipulated statistics to support your argument.

I’ve been surprised at how many of my friends that have similar upbringings and similar religious values have such divergent political views from my own.  We agree on principles, but not practices.

Admittedly, I hold the founding fathers of our country in a high position of authority, near a sacred position for me.  I read their works and I try to make a faithful interpretation of their intent.  Yet many of my contemporaries view the founding fathers and their views as antiquated for our new global market and interconnected world. 

One thing that really disappoints me is when intellectuals, liberal or conservative, say that religious people are dumb.  Frankly, religious intelligence is so far surpassing that of academic intellect that only those that have regular communion with the Holy Spirit can really comprehend.