Good Night, America?

"I don't want to kill him. I want him in jail. You understand? In jail. In a cell. Behind bars. Locked, stopped, strapped--and alive. He'll get up when they tell him to. He'll eat what they give him. He'll move when he's told to move and stop when he's told. He'll walk to the jute mill, when he's told, and he'll work as he's told. They'll push him, if he doesn't move fast enough, and they'll slap his face when they feel like it, and they'll beat him with rubber hose if he doesn't obey. And he'll obey. He'll take orders. He'll take orders!"

With the eleventh-hour passing on Friday of a mammoth 1300 page “Cap and Trade” bill in the House of Representatives -- which we know not a single Representative read, given that the bill appeared in their hands only a day before the vote -- and with it all but certain to be passed in the Senate and utterly certain to be signed into law by Lord Obama, Voldemort heir to the D.C. throne, we, the "muggles" (in Harry Potter parlance) who exist outside that world of witchcraft and sorcery, enter a new phase of American history, one that the “Death-Eaters” have come to rule.

I can hardly resist the parallel of Obama to Potter’s nemesis Lord Voldemort – I know of no better example of an over-the-top power-lusting villain in literature who can compare to the over-the-top power-lusting man now occupying the White House. The closest example is Ellsworth Toohey in Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead – but more on that shortly.

“Cap and Trade” is another in a series of coups that now confront us, beginning with Obama’s own election. That he is a committed Marxist (as I have long argued) few can reasonably doubt now -- he has seized control of the White House and demonstrated that fact time and again with the assistance of a collective of lesser marxists (small ‘m’) in the Congress and Executive and Judicial branches. The evil they are perpetrating right now is to thoroughly and effectively transform America into Amerika, and though many are involved in the murder of the American achievement – the first government in history that enshrined individual rights -- the blood of immediate responsibility is primarily on Obama's hands. He himself is merely the heir to a long succession of illegitimate intellectual fathers and killers, but however it all plays out, the symphony of destruction we are now witnessing is being brilliantly and frighteningly orchestrated by Obama himself.

Observe, for instance, the masterful way he distracted the country with the ABC television networks’ faux health care “debate” -- while slipping the Cap and Trade joker under the political poker table. Or the way he appeared to oppose the nationalization of GM – only to take the same 60% share that Hugo Chavez has taken in every nationalized Venezuelan company.

You can’t put everything at the feet of Obama, of course, but the dominoes were certainly set up for him to have “Cap and Trade” passed once he got in office. Observe how only a few months before he took office 5 members of the Supreme Court lined up at gunpoint – the guns in their own hands -- and voted to allow the EPA to regulate every single aspect of of every single American life in the name of controlling “greenhouse gases”. A remarkable conclusion founded on no valid or even believable constitutional interpretation and even more dubious scientific assertion. Even if you don’t subscribe to conspiracies of ideas or otherwise, at least you have to marvel at the scope of it all.

But if you do lean that way, you might wonder if John McCain’s own candidacy and gullibility was a part of the Obama plan. Could there have been a more perfect candidate to “oppose” Obama? McCain was not just an intellectual bumbler and an incoherent fool, but an older, less charismatic and more watered-down version of Obama himself. One has to wonder how much added support McCain was given to achieve his nomination and thereby provide Obama the maximum elective advantage. Not that McCain hadn’t worked for years to be nominated, and in a field of mostly contemptable candidates he had a good shot without any help -- but one does have to wonder why he scored the nomination so handily.

If you really want a conspiracy (don’t run away now), observe the timing of the economic collapse only weeks before the election – most economists have dismissed that possibility with contempt, but whether the timing was an accident or not (certainly the preconditions were in place), I always have to return to the Goldfinger principle: once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action. The timing of that collapse gained Obama at least 5 to 10 points at a moment in the election when he needed it.

Put aside the conspiracies. Before the election some people told me Obama was nothing more than an opportunist and pragmatist, simply using the vehicle of Leftist politics to gain office. They said he would soften and modify his positions once in power. But if you at least accept a conspiracy of ideas and fellow travelers, observe that since his election, every single action taken by Obama has been to deepen the crisis and expand it. He has mercilessly used the crises he’s inherited, and not let up one iota on his legislative agenda -- including Cap and Trade and Health Care, no matter the unarguable harm they will do.

Is Obama a simple pragmatic power luster without strong intellectual ideals? I see no evidence for it. In fact, he has lived up to and beyond my worst fears and expectations. He is much worse: he is a committed and talented Left-wing ideologue who will do anything to promote his convictions.

For a more serious example, I'm strongly reminded of Ellsworth Toohey in The Fountainhead. Toohey, the arch power-lusting Marxist, is nemesis to hero Howard Roark, and near the novel’s end, he makes a speech stating his motives, methods and goals that is prophetically relevant to events going on today in Washington. For that reason, it bears quoting at length. If my interjections annoy, ignore them, but at least read each line by Toohey himself and relate it to what’s unfolding today, if you want to understand Obama’s own immediate goals, means and ultimate ends. Do it for no other reason than your own self-preservation.

In the novel, a pretentious mediocrity par excellance, Peter Keating, has been helped his entire career by Toohey, to serve Toohey's ultimate end of destroying the independent men represented by Roark. At the juncture of Toohey’s speech, Roark faces trial and jail because of actions he was forced to take because of Toohey. Keating’s own life is now in tatters after falling from Toohey’s grace, and only now has he come to realize Toohey's motives in helping him build a fraudulent career founded on lies and Toohey’s influence. Keating has never been a man to confront facts, but in his shock, he asks Toohey a rare honest question:

"Why do you want to kill Howard?"

This was the 1930’s. In our world today, the statists and collectivists in Washington (Obama, Pelosi, Reid, Waxman, Gore, ad nauseum, and unfortunately I include far too many Republicans under that “ad nauseum” part) for the first time have virtually unbridled authority over us. Is their goal really to help us "conserve energy", "save the environment", "ensure affordable health care" or any number of other so-called lofty ideals? Or something else? Toohey answers that question in his reply to Keating:

"I don't want to kill him. I want him in jail. You understand? In jail. In a cell. Behind bars. Locked, stopped, strapped--and alive. He'll get up when they tell him to. He'll eat what they give him. He'll move when he's told to move and stop when he's told. He'll walk to the jute mill, when he's told, and he'll work as he's told. They'll push him, if he doesn't move fast enough, and they'll slap his face when they feel like it, and they'll beat him with rubber hose if he doesn't obey. And he'll obey. He'll take orders. He'll take orders!"

This is the real motive of those pushing "Cap and Trade", "Health Care Reform" and other big government remedies -- especially the motive of the behind-the-scenes operators: the humanitarians, "social activists" and intellectuals of the altruist status quo. All too many average people today, like Keating, don't grasp that.

"Ellsworth!" Keating screamed. "Ellsworth!"

"You make me sick. Can't you take the truth? No, you want your sugar-coating. That's why I prefer Gus Webb. There's one who has no illusions."

Gus Webb was a thug of sorts in the novel, who was only one step removed from those who would simply crack your skull open to get what they want. Obama is a thug like Webb, but he is enabling the other kind, who are now beginning to crawl out from under their rocks.

"You're a complete success, Peter, as far as I'm concerned. But at times I have to want to turn away from the sight of my successes."

Keating stood by the dresser, his shoulders slumped, his eyes empty.

What Toohey means by "success", of course, is far different than the achievements of the giants who made America, whom men like Keating have betrayed. Every member of Congress who voted for the Cap and Trade Bill, or who voted to nationalize GM, or who will vote for National Health Care is either a Toohey or a Keating. There’s no middle ground. None of them are giants -- their role model is the lilliputian.

"...So that's what he's done for you--and this is what you do in return....No, I take back the insults, Peter. You had to do it. Who are you to reverse the laws of history? Do you know what this paper is? The impossible perfect, the dream of the centuries, the aim of all of mankind's great schools of thought.

In the novel, “this paper” is a contract between Keating and Roark that incriminates both in the destruction of a housing complex Roark designed, which Keating took credit for and Toohey corrupted. Think of “this paper” as any act of legislation that shackles the independent man to his masters in Washington. Call it “Cap and Trade”, “TARP”, the income tax amendment, the Federal Reserve Act -- or the New York Times.  Call it any other four letter word; they all serve the same purpose:

"You harnessed him. You made him work for you. You took his achievement, his reward, his money, his glory, his name. We only thought and wrote about it. You gave a practical demonstration. Every philosopher from Plato up should thank you. Here it is, the philosopher's stone--for turning gold into lead.

You can be sure Obama and company know how to turn gold into lead: they don’t want you to succeed; they want you shackled, even if it ultimately means their own death. (See Galt’s speech in Atlas Shrugged for a full explanation of this “death premise”.) Their goal is the destruction of America because it is successful, and good. As Ayn Rand said, their’s is a “hatred of the good for being the good.”

The Left has a host of motives for this – hatred of achievement, hatred of strength, hatred of virtue, hatred of independence, hatred of happiness. The common theme is hate -- and the goal of any hate is the destruction of that which you hate. The United States of America made possible achievement, strength, virtue, independence and happiness – so the goal of the Left is the destruction of the United States. (Which, as an aside, may eventually be achieved literally via Obama’s other goal -- unilateral disarmament, an agenda now well underway – stay tuned.)

" ...You make me sick," said Toohey. "God, how you make me sick, all you hypocritical sentimentalists! You go along with me, you spout what I teach you, you profit by it--but you haven't the grace to admit to yourself what you're doing. You turn green when you see the truth. I suppose that's in the nature of your natures and that's precisely my chief weapon--but God! I get tired of it. I must allow myself a moment free of you. That's what I have to put on an act for all my life--for mean little mediocrities like you. To protect your sensibilities, your posturings, your conscience and the peace of the mind you haven't got. That's the price I pay for what I want--but at least I know that I've got to pay it. And I have no illusions about the price or the purchase."

"What do you...want...Ellsworth?"

The cashing in is when Toohey reveals the essence of his lust:

"Power, Petey." ...Toohey was smiling, almost indifferently.

"You...always said..." Keating began thickly, and stopped.

"I've always said just that. Clearly, precisely and openly. It's not my fault if you couldn't hear. You could, of course. You didn't want to. Which was safer than deafness--for me. I said I intended to rule. Like all my spiritual predecessors. But I'm luckier than they were. I inherited the fruit of their efforts and I shall be the one who'll see the great dream made real. I see it all around me today. I recognize it. I don't like it. I didn't expect to like it. Enjoyment is not my destiny. I shall find such satisfaction as my capacity permits. I shall rule."

As he says, they've said it all along, but very few have been willing to fully believe it, much less the implications. Apologists for Obama have attempted to whitewash his ambitions with good intentions, but whether it’s his presidency or the next, the reality is that the jackboots are coming. They have to. Power is of little use to power lusters unless they can use it.

They have a method of achieving it. Obama might not be willing to reveal that method (though many have noted his allegiance to Saul Alinsky), but Toohey willingly states it -- what intellectuals and moralists since Kant have taught:

"...It's the soul, Peter, the soul. Not whips or swords or fire or guns. That's why the Caesars, the Attilas, the Napoleons were fools and did not last. We will. The soul, Peter, is that which can't be ruled. It must be broken. Drive a wedge in, get your fingers on it--and the man is yours. You won't need a whip--he'll bring it to you and ask to be whipped. Set him in reverse--and his own mechanism will do your work for you. Use him against himself."

Emphasis mine. Look at the legions of executives who traveled to Washington to grovel for TARP money, who trumpet their sacrifices in support of "Green" initiatives and service to the public. Ask if Toohey's approach hasn't worked. They shamelessly embrace his moral code -- the creed of self-immolation – and they do it, at least in part, because they fail to understand Toohey’s method, even while accepting his ideal:

"Want to know how it's done? See if I ever lied to you. See if you haven't heard all this for years, but didn't want to hear, and the fault is yours, not mine. There are many ways. Here's one. Make man feel small. Make him feel guilty.

What Ayn Rand called the "sanction of the victim". You see it everywhere around us today.

"Kill his aspiration and his integrity. That's difficult. The worst among you gropes for an ideal in his own twisted way. Kill integrity by internal corruption. Use it against itself. Direct it toward a goal destructive of all integrity. Preach selflessness. Tell man that he must live for others. Tell men that altruism is the ideal. Not a single one of them has ever achieved it and not a single one ever will. His every living instinct screams against it.

If you want to know the seed of the United States’ destruction, it’s in the hypocrisy of too many people who live their lives as they should, for themselves – because there’s no other way to live – while consciously and publicly upholding altruism, when their every living instinct screams rightfully against it.

"But don't you see what you accomplish? Man realizes that he's incapable of what he's accepted as the noblest virtue--and it gives him a sense of guilt, of sin, of his own basic unworthiness. Since the supreme ideal is beyond his grasp, he gives up eventually all ideals, all aspiration, all sense of his personal value. He feels himself obliged to preach what he can't practice. But one can't be good halfway or honest approximately. To preserve one's integrity is a hard battle. Why preserve that which one knows to be corrupt already? His soul gives up its self-respect. You've got him. He'll obey. He'll be glad to obey--because he can't trust himself, he feels uncertain, he feels unclean.

To understand this, look at the posture of almost every businessman who testifies before Congress: on his knees. For instance, when the automobile executives testified after apologizing for flying corporate jets to D.C.

"That's one way. Here's another. Kill man's sense of values. Kill his capacity to recognize greatness or to achieve it. Great men can't be ruled. We don't want any great men. Don't deny the conception of greatness. Destroy it from within. The great is the rare, the difficult, the exceptional.

The goal of almost every history curriculum in schools today is to destroy all greatness by either ignoring it, or by finding feet of clay. Either is just as effective.

"Set up standards of achievement open to all, to the least, to the most inept--and you stop the impetus to effort in all men, great or small. You stop all incentive to improvement, to excellence, to perfection. Laugh at Roark and hold Peter Keating as a great architect. You've destroyed architecture. Build up Lois Cook and you've destroyed literature. Hail Ike and you've destroyed the theater. Glorify Lancelot Clokey and you've destroyed the press. Don't set out to raze all shrines--you'll frighten men. Enshrine mediocrity--and the shrines are razed.

Ever noticed how children in schools these days are praised for the most insignificant achievements, and often not even that – simply for trying? And often, not even for trying.

"Then there's another way. Kill by laughter. Laughter is an instrument of human joy. Learn to use it as a weapon of destruction. Turn it into a sneer. It's simple. Tell them to laugh at everything. Tell them that a sense of humor is an unlimited virtue. Don't let anything remain sacred in a man's soul--and his soul won't be sacred to him. Kill reverence and you've killed the hero in man. One doesn't reverence with a giggle. He'll obey and he'll set no limits to his obedience--anything goes--nothing is too serious.

Watch Comedy Central or SNL or Letterman to understand that one.

"Here's another way. This is most important. Don't allow men to be happy. Happiness is self-contained and self-sufficient. Happy men have no time and no use for you. Happy men are free men. So kill their joy in living. Take away from them whatever is dear or important to them. Never let them have what they want.

Do you see how the method works? Applied to any issue on the Left’s agenda, Cap and Trade or otherwise, the approach and implementation is simple: mock them for any achievement or virtue, take whatever they have, never let them have more, and above all, don't let them be happy.

"Make them feel that the mere fact of a personal desire is evil. Bring them to a state where saying ‘I want' is no longer a natural right, but a shameful admission. Altruism is of great help in this. Unhappy men will come to you. They'll need you. They'll come for consolation, for support, for escape. Nature allows no vacuum. Empty man's soul--and the space is yours to fill.

In this world, there are three kinds of people: those who want to rule (a small minority), those who want to be ruled (unfortunately, a majority at this epoch in time), and those who want neither. Obama is of the first kind, and his legions are of the second kind – those whose empty souls he has filled with promises of “hope” and “change”.

"I don't see why you should look so shocked, Peter. This is the oldest one of all. Look back at history. Look at any great system of ethics, from the Orient up. Didn't they all preach the sacrifice of personal joy? Under all the complications of verbiage, haven't they all had a single leitmotif: sacrifice, renunciation, self-denial? Haven't you been able to catch their theme song--'Give up, give up, give up, give up'?

There you have the essence of the creed of “energy independence”.

"Look at the moral atmosphere of today. Everything enjoyable, from cigarettes to sex to ambition to the profit motive, is considered depraved or sinful. Just prove that a thing makes men happy--and you've damned it. That's how far we've come. We've tied happiness to guilt. And we've got mankind by the throat. Throw your first-born into a sacrificial furnace--lie on a bed of nails--go into the desert to mortify the flesh--don't dance--don't go to the movies on Sunday--don't try to get rich--don't smoke--don't drink. It's all the same line. The great line. Fools think that taboos of this nature are just nonsense. Something left over, old-fashioned. But there's always a purpose in nonsense.

Far too many people on the Right take altruism seriously (the neo-Cons most notoriously, but not at all exclusively), and this is why they lose every battle or simply and openly ally with the enemy. As Ayn Rand has noted (once again), in any battle over basic principles, the most consistent will always win. (John McCain and the Republicans, are you listening?) Toohey now comes to his mea culpa:

"Don't bother to examine a folly--ask yourself only what it accomplishes.

Remember what I said about Obama: every action he has taken has been to deepen and expand the economic crisis -- and he hasn’t let up on his legislative agenda one iota, even though it will deepen and expand the crisis. Don't bother to examine a folly--ask yourself what it accomplishes.

"Every system of ethics that preached sacrifice grew into a world power and ruled millions of men. Of course, you must dress it up. You must tell people that they'll achieve a superior kind of happiness by giving up everything that makes them happy. You don't have to be too clear about it. Use big vague words. 'Universal Harmony'--'Eternal Spirit'--'Divine Purpose'--'Nirvana'--'Paradise'--'Racial Supremacy'--'The Dictatorship of the Proletariat.' Internal corruption, Peter. That's the oldest one of all.

"The farce has been going on for centuries and men still fall for it. Yet the test should be so simple: just listen to any prophet and if you hear him speak of sacrifice--run. Run faster than from a plague. It stands to reason that where there's sacrifice, there's someone collecting sacrificial offerings.

How does Lord Obama talk about getting through this economic crisis? How does his wife speak of AmeriKorp? One word: sacrifice.

"Where there's service, there's someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master.

Think about that one for a long minute: it’s crucial to understanding Obama and his “death-eaters”: The man who speaks to you of sacrifice speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master.

"But if ever you hear a man telling you that you must be happy, that it's your natural right, that your first duty is to yourself--that will be the man who's not after your soul. That will be the man who has nothing to gain from you. But let him come and you'll scream your empty heads off, howling that he's a selfish monster. So the racket is safe for many, many centuries.

That man is the third kind I mentioned.

There is a deeper level to Toohey’s method that even Obama and his minions probably don’t even grasp – because they are themselves pawns in a much bigger game, one run by the intellectuals who long ago seized control of every institution of higher learning, including Obama’s alma mater, Harvard:

"...you might have noticed something. I said, 'It stands to reason.' Do you see? Men have a weapon against you. Reason. So you must be very sure to take it away from them. Cut the props from under it. But be careful. Don't deny outright. Never deny anything outright, you give your hand away. Don't say reason is evil--though some have gone that far and with astonishing success. Just say that reason is limited. That there's something above it. What? You don't have to be too clear about it either. The field's inexhaustible. 'Instinct'--'Feeling'--'Revelation'--'Divine Intuition'--'Dialectic Materialism.' If you get caught at some crucial point and somebody tells you that your doctrine doesn't make sense--you're ready for him. You tell him that there's something above sense. That here he must not try to think, he must feel. He must believe. Suspend reason and you play it deuces wild. Anything goes in any manner you wish whenever you need it. You've got him. Can you rule a thinking man? We don't want any thinking men."

That is, eliminate them by undermining their uniquely human faculty: their conceptual ability. Make them congenital dependents born of state-run schools and they will accept any charismatic father-figure as Der Fuhrer.

Rarely has the results of this method been more eloquently demonstrated than when the TARP was willingly pulled over so many businessmen who simply rolled over like lap dogs under the tent of government largesse and relegated their judgment to the White House, the Congress, the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve, in the hope that they would stop the economic collapse caused by the White House, the Congress, the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve.

"...Peter, you've heard all this. You've seen me practicing it for ten years. You see it being practiced all over the world. Why are you disgusted? You have no right to sit there and stare at me with the virtuous superiority of being shocked. You're in on it. You've taken your share and you've got to go along.

And so they are, while taking the rest of us along for the ride on this insane Evil Kneivel jump across the Grand Canyon of Unreason in Washington. Where are we going? How will we get there? What greets us on the other side?

"...I'll tell you. The world of the future. The world I want. A world of obedience and of unity. A world where the thought of each man will not be his own, but an attempt to guess the thought of the brain of his neighbor who'll have no thought of his own but an attempt to guess the thought of the next neighbor who'll have no thought--and so on, Peter, around the globe. Since all must agree with all. A world where no man will hold a desire for himself, but will direct all his efforts to satisfy the desires of his neighbor who'll have no desires except to satisfy the desires of the next neighbor who'll have no desires--around the globe, Peter. Since all must serve all.

"A world in which man will not work for so innocent an incentive as money, but for that headless monster--prestige. The approval of his fellows--their good opinion--the opinion of men who'll be allowed to hold no opinion. An octopus, all tentacles and no brain. Judgment, Peter! Not judgment, but public polls. An average drawn upon zeroes--since no individuality will be permitted.

"A world with its motor cut off and a single heart, pumped by hand. My hand--and the hands of a few, a very few other men like me. Those who know what makes you tick--you great, wonderful average, you who have not risen in fury when we called you the average, the little, the common, you who've liked and accepted those names. You'll sit enthroned and enshrined, you, the little people, the absolute ruler to make all past rulers squirm with envy, the absolute, the unlimited, God and Prophet and King combined. Vox populi. The average, the common, the general.

"Do you know the proper antonym for Ego? Bromide, Peter. The rule of the bromide. But even the trite has to be originated by someone at some time. We'll do the originating. Vox dei. We'll enjoy unlimited submission--from men who've learned nothing except to submit. We'll call it 'to serve.'

"We'll give out medals for service. You'll fall over one another in a scramble to see who can submit better and more. There will be no other distinction to seek. No other form of personal achievement. Can you see Howard Roark in the picture? No? Then don't waste time on foolish questions. Everything that can't be ruled, must go.

"And if freaks persist in being born occasionally, they will not survive beyond their twelfth year.

Toohey means, beyond twelve, a child’s intellect will be subverted by his teachers (read Ayn Rand’s novelette “Anthem” to understand), but as I said in a previous essay, give it time and something more sinister could be threatened. That one is probably not for Obama’s time, but when shortages get really severe down the road, you will hear calls to control birth-rates (as in England, today), and when starvation hits – calls for more. The Chinese government is good at this one.

"When their brain begins to function, it will feel the pressure and it will explode. The pressure gauged to a vacuum. Do you know the fate of deep-sea creatures brought out to sunlight? So much for future Roarks. The rest of you will smile and obey. Have you noticed that the imbecile always smiles? Man's first frown is the first touch of God on his forehead. The touch of thought. But we'll have neither God nor thought. Only voting by smiles. Automatic levers--all saying yes...

Smiles -- Obama’s most famous attribute. The smile that won an election, along with a lot of Hope and Change – about a billion dollars worth of change, actually, in nickels and dimes he found laying about in furniture and clothes dryers overseas.

"...Peter, my poor old friend, I'm the most selfless man you've every known. I have less independence than you, whom I just forced to sell your soul. You've used people at least for the sake of what you could get from them for yourself. I want nothing for myself. I use people for the sake of what I can do to them. It's my only function and satisfaction. I have no private purpose. I want power. I want my world of the future. Let all live for all. Let all sacrifice and none profit. Let all suffer and none enjoy. Let progress stop. Let all stagnate. There's equality in stagnation. All subjugated to the will of all. Universal slavery--without even the dignity of a master. Slavery to slavery. A great circle--and a total equality. The world of the future."

There you have the essence of Obama’s ultimate purpose, and the purpose of “Cap and Trade” in particular: the destruction of all progress, of all technology, of all human achievement, of all human happiness.

"Ellsworth...you're..."

"Insane? Afraid to say it? There you sit and the world's written all over you, your last hope. Insane? Look around you. Pick up any newspaper and read the headlines. Isn't it coming? Isn't it here? Every single thing I told you? Isn't Europe swallowed already and we're stumbling on to follow?

It has, it is, we are.

"Everything I said is contained in a single word--collectivism. And isn't that the god of our century? To act together. To think--together. To feel--together. To unite, to agree, to obey. To obey, to serve, to sacrifice. Divide and conquer--first. But then--unite and rule.

Lot’s of calls for “unity” today, and collectivism, yes, that is his ideal, but as Leonard Peikoff said in The Ominous Parallels (circa 1980), the practical result is that this country is headed towards fascism – state control of everything while preserving the appearance of property rights. Exhibit A: GM and a Chavez-sanctioned 60% government stake. Others have been criticized as crazy for making the comparison, but there is more than an eerie similarity to the rise of the Nazis in Weimar Germany.

"...Remember the Roman Emperor who said he wished humanity had a single neck so he could cut it? People have laughed at him for centuries. But we'll have the last laugh. We've accomplished what he couldn't accomplish. We've taught men to unite. This makes one neck ready for one leash. We found the magic word. Collectivism. Look at Europe, you fool. Can't you see past the guff and recognize the essence? One country is dedicated to the proposition that man has no rights, that the collective is all. The individual held as evil, the mass--as God. No motive and no virtue permitted--except that of service to the proletariat. That's one version.

"Here's another. A country dedicated to the proposition that man has no rights, that the State is all. The individual held as evil, the race--as God. No motive and no virtue permitted--except that of service to the race. Am I raving or is this the cold reality of two continents already?

Remember, this was written during the rise of the Nazis and the communists. If you think the “Thousand Points of Light” Republicans offer an alternative to the Left, however, think again. When both sides embrace the same principle,

"Watch the pincer movement. If you're sick of one version, we push you into the other. We get you coming and going. We've closed the doors. We've fixed the coin. Heads--collectivism, and tails--collectivism. Fight the doctrine which slaughters the individual with a doctrine which slaughters the individual. Give up your soul to a council--or give it up to a leader. But give it up, give it up, give it up. My technique, Peter. Offer poison as food and poison as antidote. Go fancy on the trimmings, but hang on to the main objective. Give the fools a choice, let them have their fun--but don't forget the only purpose you have to accomplish. Kill the individual. Kill man's soul. The rest will follow automatically. Observe the state of the world as of the present moment. Do you still think I'm crazy, Peter?"

The response you can expect from the Keatings in America to the falling dominoes of Cap and Trade, National Health Care, ad infinitum, is: evasion, incipient nervous breakdown and potential psychosis, driven by an unwillingness to confront what they have betrayed, and an inability to let go their own destroyers:

"Keating sat on the floor, his legs spread out. He lifted one hand and studied his fingertips, then put it to his mouth and bit off a hangnail. But the movement was deceptive; the man was reduced to a single sense, the sense of hearing... Keating lifted his head. His voice had the quality of a down payment on terror; it was not frightened, but it held the advance echoes of the next hour to come:

"Don't go, Ellsworth."

Toohey stood over him, and laughed softly.

"That's the answer, Peter. That's my proof. You know me for what I am, you know what I've done to you, you have no illusions of virtue left. But you can't leave me and you'll never be able to leave me. You've obeyed me in the name of ideals. You'll go on obeying me without ideals. Because that's all you're good for now....Good night, Peter."

Unless people wake up right now to oppose what’s being done to them, wake up and defend their rights to exist, prosper and pursue their own happiness as free individuals -- it will soon be good night, America.