Friday, May 09, 2008

How Profound!

In Ayn Rand's (a Russian immigrant) book, The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution, she discusses a NYT article about the lack of free speech in the Soviet Union. She says, "The words in my mind, when I read that story, were: There, but for the grace of the United States of America, go I."

A brilliant substitution to those interested in life here on Earth.

5 comments:

Dad said...

Our next president could be a man who is ashamed to wear a flag pin on his lapel.

Luke Murphy said...

Yeah or it could be a phony patriot who doesn't know the first thing about why the US is great, and doesn't know what the 1st amendment is either.

Caleb said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Dad said...

I don't think it has anything to do with patriotism, a word I don't much care for. Whatever you can say about mcCain, and McCain-Feingold really angers me, he had the courage and fortitude to serve his country (and pay for it)when I was too much a coward to do it. Because of that, I have to honor and respect McCain.

Wearing a flag pin is a cheap and easy gesture. It speaks volumes to me about Obama that he prefers not to wear it.

Luke Murphy said...

Yeah I'm not crazy about "patriotism" as a way of judging people either. I agree that that lack of gesture speaks volumes about Obama. What I don't like about McCain's "patriotism" is that it's more of the nationalist, serve the motherland, duty to the "greater good," variety.

Dad don't consider yourself a coward, you didn't have any duty to the vietnamese, and conscription is slavery. If there was a draft today I would think more than twice about my own voluntary military service. About McCain's service, I would commend him for it, but I do NOT think that joining the military makes one an automatic saint who is then immune to criticism for the rest of his life. In my very short time in the military I've met some phenominal people and some absolute creeps. Quite a few of them aren't much different than the Peace Corps types, only of the opposite political persuasion.