“On trips to Asia I often asked men in their thirties and forties what they were reading when they were eighteen. They usually answered 'Karl Marx', and when I asked them why, they replied, 'We were under colonial rule, seeking a way out. We wanted our independence. To get it, we had to make revolution. The only books on revolution were published by the communists.' These men almost invariably had repudiated communism as a political cult, retaining, however, a tinge of socialism. As I talked with them, I came to realize the great opportunities we missed when we became preoccupied in fighting communism with bombs and with dollars, rather than with ideas of revolution, of freedom, of justice.”

U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, “The U.S. and Revolution,” Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions Occasional Paper No. 116

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Wow, I guess Ayn Rand really did have the right idea after all when she decided to write Atlas Shrugged. Who knew?

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