"When robbery is done in open daylight by sanction of the law, as it is done today..." - Ragnar Danneskjold
"When robbery is done in open daylight by sanction of the law, as it is done today, then any act of honor or restitution has to be hidden underground." - Ragnar Danneskjold
GO BACK TO THE BOOK BEFORE YOU SAY ANYTHING WHICH STARTS WITH "maybe". Especially where there is a passage which states EXACTLY what is happening, and why, not "somewhere in the story".
AS, hardback copy, pgs 572 - 582
Ragnar meets Hank [as if by chance, but not really] and says "I don't intend to ask you for money, but to return it to you."
Hank questions, then accuses Ragnar of "living by force"..Ragnar explains that he is returning money to Hank which was taken from him by force, and further says the only entities he robs are "loot-carrier, government relief ship, subsidy ship, loan ship, gift ship" and continues "I am a policeman. It is a policeman's duty to retrieve stolen property and return it to its owners."
and continues, specifically,
"...there is one part of the debt which is computed and on record. That is the part which I have made in my purpose to collect and return to you." "Your income tax."
He clearly states from whom he is stealing, and for what reason.
Maybe you should do a little remedial reading??
1.Person A makes claim X.
2.Person B asserts that A's actions or past claims are inconsistent with the truth of claim X.
3.Therefore X is false
I don't think that's what Ragnar was doing. But, I'm all ears (thanks Ross Perot) if you want to flesh that out a bit. Happy Friday, by the way...
- There's a lot of theft in the AS world. --> True
- Many people in the AS world do not respect people's rights and property. --> True.
- So if I steal something, there's a good chance it was stolen and the person I give it to is the rightful owner, so I'll just steal it. --> This is the part I found contemptible. Maybe he was saying he was stealing things he knew were stolen by gov't. But the story clearly says that gov't was taking from everyone and then reallocating it, so people were getting the stuff they made taken and then getting other people's stuff given to them based on political favors. So it's not as simple as returning stolen property to its rightful owner. Maybe the point was gov't not respecting the law and people's rights leads people like Ragnar, would would otherwise respect property, to steal.
end of conversation except for arrest, trial, conviction and punishment
except in the USA which isnow officially by act of congress a fascist country
And by the way, when I see someone using their CBT card, that money has not been reallocated to someone from whom it was taken.
You seem unable to understand the concept of government theft. You have stated before that if the money is used for a good cause, the theft is ok.
I think you have me confused with someone else. :)
Why not just rob the people at James Taggart's wedding reception, like the Penguin did in Batman? Why not steal stuff from Taggart Transcontinental as it is a beneficiary of government looting -- which fact Danneskjold acknowledges to Dagny when he explains her income tax "return" to her.
Remember, also, that in Rand's day as she was writing Atlas Shrugged government relief ships to foreign lands were daily news. It was clear symbolism.
I look at it like Galt's Motor. That was an idea that Rand used in an earlier story in the 1930s. It is not original with her, of course. It may be interesting to think about. Indeed, one time in a physics class, as the prof was lecturing on Gauss's Law, I saw the door to the Motor open... but it remains more demanding than the limits of my knowledge and intelligence to enter the passage way. So, we can argue Galt's Motor, but it was not a real thing.
Similarly, in the context of the story, Danneskjo"lds piracy serves a purpose. In real life, it would be highly problematic.... though entertaining and instructive in the extreme!
Do you find the character to be a hero or an example of how not respecting people's rights drives otherwise good people to become criminals?
Is it because it was a gov't program the protagonists strongly disagreed with? I disagree maintaining bases around the world, but I would consider it treasonous to steal supplies heading to those bases or US allies.
Ayn Rand's view was that "those people" brought it all on themselves. They endorsed Hegel and Bismarck socialism, and the Nazis and all the rest. We rubber stamp France as an "ally" and we have heroic myths about their underground, but Action Francaise was then and is now fascist and those adherents turned in Jews to the Germans. As far as Ayn Rand was concerned, no one in Europe deserved our help. We were being magnanimous in the extreme. And by "we" that means the productive Americans who were robbed by their own government to fill the cargoes of those relief ships. (And yes that includes C.A.R.E., a private organization that milked the guilt of the American people to feed those who got what they deserved.)
Yes, it is harsh. Believe me, I consider the children. They had no choice. Others also were innocent victims. But, too, was covered in "Galt's Speech." Always we are supposed to share in the suffering of victims. We reduce all of humanity to victimhood and thereby deny the heroic, the achievers, the knowers, the doers. Rand rejected that completely, thoroughly, and consistently,
You and I share a commitment to the future. You and I reject the paranoid victimhood of the retreatists. The millennarian retreatists and the welfare shippers are two sides of the same coin.
This is the first I've heard of the relief ships. I didn't know the history so didn't know what Rand was talking about. Can you recommend a book on it? What was the stated purpose of the relief efforts? Were they trying to prevent a repeat of WWII?
Wikipedia here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CARE_Pa...
Infoplease here: http://www.infoplease.com/encyclopedi...
And The Marshall Plan as told by the State Department: https://history.state.gov/milestones/...
I stand alone.