The Objectivist Ascension

It’s been a decade since I wrote those pages. At the time it seemed nothing more than my thoughts put to paper, a political and philosophical journal entry. Ayn Rand would be ecstatic at what has come to pass. Her trains of “second handers,” as she often called those who did not adhere to her “extreme capitalism,” were seen as inevitable victims of altruistic policies. If only she had seen the evil selfishness of altruism, perhaps she would have felt differently about it. Altruism is a collection of self aggrandized “do-gooders” that are more interested in the appearance of moral superiority and virtuous actions than they are in actually creating a fair and just society.

I wrote ‘are,’ though I suppose ‘were’ would be more accurate. It appears the fascists learned better from history than the altruists. Why bother going after individual groups? I guess most people thought that the army or national guard would be utilized to stop the Militia Urban Assault. ‘Assault’ was their word; it was actually quite docile, how the purge occurred. Most people went peacefully with the heavily armed mobs of ‘patriots,’ assuming their tax dollars would eventually save them. They didn’t realize it was those very taxes that were being used against them to fund their round-up. Only history will know the true body count.

How is it that I managed to survive their purge? That’s a fair question… I know it’s cliché, but it’s cliché for a reason; “know thy enemy.” I never had an interest in reading anything of Ayn Rand; as far as I was concerned, she was a false prophet that touted conservative talking points, but with an intellectual flair that her cult of greedy, dead eyed, hedge fund managers lack. It was just around the time I wrote those first pages, ten or so years ago, that I happened upon Rand’s The Virtue of Selfishness. A title so ludicrous that I felt compelled to educate myself about the author before delving into her thoughts. It was to me, a ridiculous claim then, and even more so now, to say selfishness is virtuous. Yet, understanding her then is partly why I’m alive today.

Certainly my semi-nomadic lifestyle and lack of updated bureaucratic papers played a role in my safety. Still, I felt sick initially with what was happening. Complicit in their actions because I did nothing to stop people from being taken from their homes. But they all went so willingly. What could I have done? The police were part of it, almost immediately. There were internal struggles in departments, but all over the country the depraved won out. When stories started to surface about local law enforcement either joining the militia, or their departments being taken over by them, no one really believed it. They thought the bad apples would be removed, that civility would regain control. This assumption did not hold though, aside from the stark denial of these concerning events, media sources up and down, and across the political spectrum, had become flooded with false reports.

Some of the more reputable sources worked tirelessly to combat and disprove all of the false information, but they were simply accused of falsification themselves. Apparent truth had ceased to exist in the vast majority of news content consumed by the American public. It didn’t matter what political party one affiliated with, all news in the main public sphere of “base voters” was illegitimate when coming from the “other side,” as far as those “base voters” were concerned.

I know I alluded to the Militia not seeking to purge based on groups, but that isn’t entirely true. People weren’t taken based on ethnicity, race, class, or any other historically known act of negative integration. I have no proof of this, but the purge, I thought it was done using ballots from the last election, six years ago. I assumed they just went after anyone who hadn’t voted for their presidential candidate, and that I had probably slipped through the proverbial cracks. Yet I’m still alive, two years since the round-up and no one came knocking on my door. As time passed I realized how they had done it. As disorganized as my government identifications may be, my voter registration was accurate. Of all the reasons I’m likely still alive, even though I generally voted for liberal candidates, it almost certainly must be that I was registered as unaffiliated with any political party.

The Militia have proven only one thing to me, they’re inept; because only an idiot would mistakenly leave their professed enemy to be free. And if they missed loading me onto their trains, then I was sure there are others. Now I know there are others. We are organizing. We won’t call this a revolution though, that would concede to their claim to rule this land. The fight to regain the soul of democracy, it is a counterinsurgency, and it must be based on one thing, collective anarchy.

To me, this is where Rand’s greatest failure as a philosopher is found, her conflation of collectivism to altruism. Her view was tainted from an early age, when she was forced to flea Russia from the fascist regime that posed as communists. They had destroyed her Tsarist supported life of luxury, and she held on bitterly to her hate for the supposed collectivists that were responsible. But they weren’t collectivists of any kind; Lenin and Stalin were basic altruists that didn’t have the modern oligarchical understanding of using passive policies that claim to benefit the masses, in order to maintain control and power. True collectivist minded people understand what Rand did, that each individual is equally important based on their capabilities, but that no individual’s right to life is less important than any other. But she misunderstands the true purpose of collectivism, that concern for the most vulnerable is, to a rational mind, necessary for a society to thrive, and not just merely exist.

Her “extreme capitalism” can be found the world over in developing countries. The ‘laissez-faire’ approach does not work for one obvious reason, there is no ceiling when it comes to greed; mercantilism was proven false two centuries ago when European countries first experienced how inflation adversely affects a state’s wealth. Without regulations there are no caps on pollution, there are major violations of worker rights, multinational corporations easily crush locally owned businesses through monopolization. Why should the people have to petition their employers to be treated fairly, especially when it almost always ends up with the employees threatening to not work, eventually leading to a worker’s strike. Such things are counterproductive to a functioning society.

Sure, there’s always someone desperate enough to put aside their pride for a job. However, when the vast majority collectively refuse to discard their pride from crumbs, when society’s choice is between a meaningless life of servitude and struggle, or to fight for a life where everyone will have the opportunity to thrive, a collective of individuals will eventually choose revolt.

Revolt is not revolution, it is revolt, which for four years sustained the resistance. Which is to say the total obstinate blind rejection of an order which wanted to force men onto their knees. Revolt comes first from the heart; but there comes a time when it passes into the mind, when feeling becomes idea, when spontaneous impulse ends as concerted action. That is the moment of revolution.

~Albert Camus