Bridge To Somewhere

I've heard a lot of "Obama the Socialist/Marxist" again lately after he released his jobs bill. More criticism erupted over Obama standing in front of a bridge and saying essentially, our infrastructure is in need of repair. Let's put people to work to fix this bridge. Many viewed his backdrop as a means to politicize for the upcoming election, and that he should "return to Washington" and" talk to them instead of standing in front of bridges". Even in the face of the fact that Republicans haven't "talked to him" in the past (at least not with any willingness to listen much less compromise on anything), they utter such statements. Al Sharpton put it best when he called the bridge, "The Bridge to Somewhere." How quickly we all forget that a lot of presidents make political speeches using their surroundings as backdrops to make points to use them as symbols and rallying cries for their causes. I seem to remember another recent president standing on an aircraft carrier with a banner saying "Mission Accomplished"...

Atlas Meh Atlas Sucks Atlas Atlas Duh

Libertarians certainly do their war dance shoving this weighty 1000+ page tome in your face and parroting “YOU MUST READ THIS!” as they club you over the head with it repeatedly and then, when you’ve fallen senseless to the ground, they proceed to bash and crush your skull with the book until your brains and bones are ground to a meaty pulp. Then they’ll proceed to kick your corpse while merrily shouting, “Who is John Gault?”

There is very little subtlety in Ayn Rand. Just like her followers, she gleefully clobbers you over the head with her message about producers and looters.  To be fair… her book weighs about as much as a sledgehammer anyway so I’m not making much of a metaphor here.

When one of my friends pointed out that the first of 3 movies of Atlas Shrugged was coming out in Theaters, my response was, “meh.”  Little did I know what uttering that one little word would cost me.

Ayn forbid that you dare to criticize Atlas Shrugged. If you do so then you’re sure to invoke the ire of the entire population of the sovereign state of Libertaria and all of its inhabitants. For all intents and purposes, you’ve dared to burn their Bible (or Koran) as Atlas Shrugged is universally regarded as their “holy book”. And that’s probably what I hate most about the book. You can’t criticize it. 

You will inevitably find yourself accosted with questions like these: “So what exactly don’t you like about Atlas Shrugged? Do you not like capitalism? Are you against freedom? Do you not like art? Are you against democracy?” As if disliking the book itself (or the author) also means that you’re a Communist, you’re a Marxist, you’re a “looter”, you’re not a productive member of society… or you don’t like any of the tenants of Rand’s Objectivism (if you have the tenacity to sludge your way through it and if you can stomach the towering hubris of its author).

So I propose let’s take “Objectivism” and all that it entails and put it back on the shelf for the moment and talk about THE BOOK Atlas Shrugged!  We’ll argue Objectivism another day. OK? No? Oh, I can’t possibly do that, you say? I can’t talk about Atlas Shrugged and NOT talk about all of the concepts within it? Why not? Well, there’s the fact that Rand proceeds to force feed it to us on every page until we burst like the Gluttony guy in the movie Seven. So I guess you can’t talk about one without talking about the other.

As someone who has tried now 5 times and failed the first 4 to get through this body of “work”, I am trudging along this final time out of spite and just to say that I did it. It is my objective to reach the end do or die… if for no other reason, than to shout out to the heavens, “DO NOT READ THIS BOOK!” I have armed myself this time with an Audio version off of Audible.com (which I should point out is unabridged… so 8 chapters long and each chapter a full 8 hours on its own), which of course, my friend was mad that I did that. I’ll save my argument about the pros and cons of unabridged audiobooks vs. reading books for some other time.

Ayn Rand, as a writer takes, pages and pages and pages and pages AND PAGES to describe… for argument’s sake let’s use a pancake as an example. She bombards you the reader with massively excessive and lethargically descriptive and cumbersome turns of phrases generously slathered like thick syrupy paste heavily dolloped over a plate of her own recipe of alphabet soup-like word pancakes. Then she painfully describes the way the butter slowly works its way down the syrup mountain and how, when you insert the knife into the pancakes, the way the light reflects off of your silverware and how the syrup slowly soaks into every new cut that you make into the flaky center. And then she REALLY gets going by describing the wafts of steam rising off of the plate and the sizzle of the bacon... She does this for 15 pages before you even get to take a single bite at which time you find that you no longer want to eat pancakes at all… or ever again!! You just want to stab yourself in the eye with the knife just to distract you from the fact that you’ve barely reached page 15! I’m told John Gault goes on for 100 pages later on in the book!!! Really?? For the love of Ayn!

We get endless chapters of unnecessary back story about two of the main characters, which in and of itself could constitute a “coming of age” mini-novel. We get the most "unsensual" descriptions imaginable of intimacy and sex acts and the lack of guilt associated with illicit affairs.  We get dialogue that goes around in such circles that you as the reader get a weird sense of déjà vu and you’re left thinking, “Did they just say that exact thing two pages ago, just flip flop a few words around?”

Against all of this we are presented with very obvious metaphors and very blatant messages. The characters are cookie cutter at best. It doesn’t matter, looter or producer… all of the characters think they are the smartest persons they know. It oozes out of their pores. There is a kind of combative, condescending, patronizing, dispassionate and generally creepy way that they all talk to each other… (my friend blames this on my audiobook) like none of them possess any social skills whatsoever and anyone who disagrees with them on anything is barely worth drawing breath to address.

Then halfway through this sophomoric insult to the very limits of human patience and decency we get something potentially exciting: a train accident. Or what constitutes pages and pages and pages leading up to a train accident. Or at least, we certainly get a lot of very lengthy description why in Ayn Rand’s mind it is totally justified why each and every person on the train died horribly in said accident. Seriously! “So and so” stole money from a producer once, so he won’t be missed! A teacher in car 10 taught his classes that “people are animals,” so no great loss there. Even this mother, who is tucking in her kids to bed in car 21… well she supported her husband’s endeavors to rip off hard working capitalists, so she and her brood deserve the violent and presumably fiery death that they got. But as we know, Altruism is bad. Caring at all about anyone else is bad, especially if they aren’t good laissez-faire capitalists. It was at this point where, if I had a physical book in front of me, I would have thrown it forcefully across the room so pissed off that I gave myself a migraine and then stomped on the book repeatedly like some twisted Wile E Coyote cartoon. I'm sorry... I that's just so wrong. No matter how much I disagree with someone or dare I say despise them, I would not go so far as to say their death was "justified". If this was "just a work of fiction", I could dismiss this section of the book and move on, but since it is considered "holy scripture" by it's adherents, my level of disgust is physically palpable.

I suppose this would be a good time for me to interject the fact that in my further readings about Ayn Rand I found out that she was a fan of William Edward Hickman… a serial killer. She modeled some of her hero characters after him. Rand was addicted to drugs. She fell for a younger man who, after a many years affair with her, he then fell for a much younger woman and left her... which was a serious blow to poor Ayn. She labeled anyone who dared to disagree with her a human “parasite” including those in her "inner circle"... But don't take my word for it.

http://www.alternet.org/story/145819/?page=entire

http://www.thenation.com/article/garbage-and-gravitas

http://www.slate.com/id/2233966#return

Well I suppose I should try to listen to the second half now.

Oh. Sorry... All Hail Ayn Rand. Peace Be Upon Her.

A letter to David Wood and Nabeel Qureshi

 This is in response to

"Silly Comment of the Week (By 1MoreMuslim)" on AnsweringMuslims.com

I've been following Answering Muslims for awhile and only recently decided to participate. I do have to say that I feel that I have learned a great deal about Islam from this blog, and from reading authors like Ayan Hirsi Ali and Robert Spencer. After watching David and Nabeel's video debates I have nothing but respect for their knowledge and insights and how they conduct themselves in the debates.  I only wish some of our country's leaders would conduct themselves in a similar manner in some of their political discourse... but anyway.

As someone who considers myself a "secular left leaning moderate" (If there is such a thing), I'm a little taken aback by some of the the "secular" and "liberal" generalizations I find occasionally peppered in some of the comments on their blog.

It irritates me that in my own debate experiences many of my "Christian Conservative Republican" friends (see what I just did there?) have been 1.) quick to make broad sweeping generalizations about liberals and  2.) label me as "liberal". If and when I dare to disagree with them on anything like Obama, the environment, the economy, health care, etc... I usually get told to, "go back to my hippie drum circle and sing kumbya" (yes, I've actually been told this by people I've tried to debate). I find this to be a petty non-response (I believe this is called an "Ad Homonym" attack.  But enough about politics. Sticks and stones. If nothing else I learned all about "Ad Homonym" and "Non Sequitors" and how to combat those shady "debate" tactics from David and Nabeel's many video debates.

I would like to point out that not every liberal (or secular person or moderate) is a "Dirty Hippie" or a Muslim apologist who jumps to the defense of Islam without actually reading the Koran... just like not every Muslim is a terrorist... and occasionally I DO meet a "Conservative Christian Republican" (there, I did it again. See?) that I respect and can actually bear to talk to. Occasionally.

I think David Wood and Nabeel Qureshi have been pretty successful at keeping themselves above such petty labeling, though some who post to their blog have not.

Well, I have finally found an issue to agree with many of my conservative friends on...

I find that I respect David Wood a great deal for his admission of coming from Atheism to Christianity. And Nabeel Qureshi for his conversion from Islam to Christianity. I suppose I would categorize myself as going from Christianity to Agnosticism (sort of the other direction I guess. I'm not a full on Atheist yet... All Hail the Flying Spaghetti Monster). Still I cannot imagine the stress and pressures one goes through when one changes their beliefs in such a profound way. That takes a lot of strength of character.

My one criticism of David Wood (to get back to the topic of the particular thread in question) is just the fact that he continues to engage the likes of frequent commenters like 1MoreMuslim and GreekAsianPanda and their ilk at all at this point. I usually enjoy spirited debate in the blogs, but those two commentators just seem like they're trolling David anymore, silly comments or not.  That's just me. David. Quit feeding the trolls buddy. Other than that, while I might not agree with all of your politics or the politics of some of those others who post to your blog, I enjoy reading your blog, I feel like I am learning a lot and I will continue watching your video debates and will continue to be one of your followers.