Formidable machines indeed…

The glances of women are like certain apparently peaceful, but really formidable, machines. You pass them every day quietly, with impunity, and without suspicion of danger. There comes a moment when you forget even that they are there. You come and go, you muse and talk and laugh. Suddenly you feel that you are seized; it is done. The wheels have caught you, the glance has captured you. It has taken you, no matter how or where, by any portion whatever of your thought which was trailing. Through any absence of mind, you are lost. You will be drawn in entirely. A chain of mysterious forces has gained possession of you. You struggle in vain; no human succor is possible. You will be drawn down, from wheel to wheel, from anguish to anguish, from torture to torture. You, your mind, your fortune, your future, your soul; and, you will not escape from the terrible machine until, according as you are in the power of a malevolent nature, or a noble heart, you will be disfigured by shame, or transfigured by love.

Les Misérables - Volume III: Book Sixth, Chapter VI (Wilbour Translation)

My sentiments echo this excerpt from Ayn Rand’s address to the graduating class of The United States Military Academy at West Point — March 6, 1974.

“You have chosen to risk your lives for the defense of this country. I will not insult you by saying that you are dedicated to selfless service — it is not a virtue in my morality. In my morality, the defense of one’s country means that a man is personally unwilling to live as the conquered slave of any enemy, foreign or domestic.

This is an enormous virtue.

Some of you may not be consciously aware of it. I want to help you to realize it. The army of a free country has a great responsibility: the right to use force, but not as an instrument of compulsion and brute conquest — as the armies of other countries have done in their histories — only as an instrument of a free nation’s self-defense, which means: the defense of a man’s individual rights. The principle of using force only in retaliation against those who initiate its use, is the principle of subordinating might to right. The highest integrity and sense of honor are required for such a task.

No other army in the world has achieved it. You have”

I certainly do appreciate the freedom fought and died for by patriots of this country, but I fear we’re coming dangerously close to a total abandonment of that virtuous essence which justified the struggle and maintenance of freedom.

This country was founded on individual rights; when those are gone, so is America. The biggest challenge we face is the endeavor to salvage this once great nation as one still worth defending.

Here’s to those who have and will continue to defend it - both militarily as well as intellectually

“A system predicated upon fraud isn’t sustainable. A clearing and settlement system that facilitates counterfeiting and fraud, and is accountable to nobody, isn’t a clearing and settlement system. A media that only touts the party line isn’t a free press. A private cartel of banks, writing trillions of dollars of taxpayer-funded checks while refusing to tell anyone who is receiving the loot isn’t a sustainable banking system. A government that allows all the above to become the status quo, and which twists statistics in order to lie to its own citizenry as well as the rest of the world, isn’t a sustainable government.” - Neo-Feudal Casino-Gulag Plantation-Economy Minion #43G_02101976_73