Friday, April 17, 2009

Robin Hood, the Foulest of Creatures?

It's time for another quote of the week, I usually try and post these on Tuesdays but I have been playing catch up this week.

So I have reached the Atlantis in Atlas Shrugged but I want to go back to a part of the noval that I had booked marked. This part only seems fitting since this week was Tax week. This great part of Atlas Shrugged is when Hank Rearden is talking to Ragnar Danneskjöld

The following is an excerpts from Atlas Shrugged, © Copyright, 1957, by Ayn Rand.
“I’ve chosen a special mission of my own. I’m after a man whom I want to destroy. He died many centuries ago, but until the last trace of him is wiped out of men’s minds, we will not have a decent world to live in.”
Hank Rearden: “What man?”
Danneskjold: “Robin Hood.”
Hank Rearden doesn't really know what he means and Dannesjold goes in and explains the horror which Robin Hood immortalizes as an ideal of righteousness.

He is remembered, not as a champion of property, but as a champion of need, not as a defender of the robbed, but as a provider of the poor. He is held to be the first man who assumed a halo of virtue by practicing charity with wealth which he did not own, by giving away goods which he had not produced, by making others pay for the luxury of his pity. He is the man who became the symbol of the idea that need, not achievement, is the source of rights, that we don't have to produce, only to want, that the earned does not belong to us, but the unearned does.

It is the foulest of creatures - the double-parasite who lives on the sores of the poor and the blood of the rich-whom men have come to regard as a moral ideal.
Without getting to political, I have to say that some of our politicians today feel that the people who have created an abundance of wealth should pay more for people that haven't created anything but feel the right that they are owed something. Don't believe me? Check out Man vs Debt's article about some of his lesson learned while preparing taxes this season.

Have a great weekend! I am headed to the beach to surf this weekend so I am really excited! Hope yours is good as mine!

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for the link love!

    I found my experience preparing taxes to be very eye-opening.

    I must admit I am new to the blog, but have subscribed and am looking forward to your new content!

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  2. This is fantastic. The "robin hood" behavior of many of today's politicians is disgusting. Unfortunately their definition of "rich" gets less rich by the day (Is $250,000 year in Manhattan with a family of four RICH????)

    Its getting tougher by the day to remain productive and motivated but I'm trying.

    Thanks for the blog . . . love it!

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