Here are some highlights of the plot and characters of the text and their philosophies. Rand attacks the more radical elements of society. Rand teaches against socialism and a non-merit-based social structure. The emphasis I’ve placed on these notes is demonstrating good work ethic, which seems to be all but lost to this generation of socialists who are looking for other people to work for them.

 

I’ve intermingled these notes with additional commentary of parallels between the teachings of the Latter-day Saints and those of Rand.

 

I have many agreements with Rand, but disagree with her religion bashing. Due to some places mixing in some foolish ideas, I don’t recommend this book for young readers, particularly not without structuring and guidance from adult mentors. If a person isn’t well grounded in Christian principles, they may not be able to discern between the truth and error found in Rand’s books.

 

Notwithstanding its limitations, this book is a great chapter in the annals of freedom writings.

 

Let’s begin:

 

 

Dagney Tagart, the railroad executive heroine, uses the common the phrase, “who is John Golt,” which meant “nobody knows.” People used the phrase as an excuse to get out of thinking, to shift responsibility elsewhere, to excuse idleness, etc. (Note: It is like how people today say, “Only God knows!” John Galt is essentially a prototype of a God in the text – the ideal, the standard, the judge who walked the walk. End note.) When people say, “Only God knows”, they are avoiding their duty to investigate and find the answers themselves. So she built a railroad and called it the John Golt. When asked, “Who is John Golt?”, she said, “We are.” This means rather than stopping, you keep going even when you have questions. You take personal responsibility for greatness rather than always looking for someone to shift the blame to. You don’t shift hope for success to the government or anyone else. Rather than sitting around in a stupor, we get to work and build great things and make great profits. We carry society by our work. To refuse to think is evil. (Note: Many have used the bumper sticker “Who is John Galt?” as a way of passing in the freedom message. End note.)

 

Hank Rearton the steel business owner hero worked 18-hour days. When something went wrong Hank blamed no one but himself.

Hank learned to enjoy social parties/pleasures not for his sake but theirs.

Note: Similarly, much of church services are being there to serve others, not just to learn new things. And particularly as a parent, you enjoy outings not for the outing sake, but for the children, and the simple joy it is to be with them and see them happy. End note.

Francisco Danconio, the copper mine owner, let a large mine project in Mexico fall apart because he was experimenting with conforming to what everyone saw as good in the philosophy of his day, namely anti-capitalism, and that making a profit is evil. The masses said that owners were greedy and selfish and that it’s good to give people jobs because they need them, not because they’re skilled. They said that the purpose of a job is to give someone work rather than to produce something. He didn’t bother going to the mine, he just left it in the hands of people who needed work who weren’t really talented. He didn’t bother them with his presence since it’s not okay for a boss to be ‘mean.’ It all fell apart and then people blamed him for the loss. He asked them, “Why are you blaming me when you should be praising me? I’ve conformed to everything that you say is virtuous.”

If you have good intentions and an honest offer/product, you don’t need to spend much time getting acquainted.

 

Note: Something similar applies to courtship. Honest people can quickly learn each other’s intentions and character, and prolonged courtship won’t be necessary before forming a stable happy marital union. This, I believe, is one reason why Uthans are known for marrying younger and staying married longer than other American marriages on average. End note.

The employer says I hired you to do a job, not to do your best, whatever that is.

You can’t bring the Fountain of Youth – which is on a mountaintop – down to man, it can only be had by those who will go up.

Rearton would not give a job to his brother just because he was his brother. It would be a fraud giving him a salary for something he could not perform, and Rearton’s business would thus be reduced to a whore house, putting on an air of something while something else entirely was the reality. Rearton gave money to his brother when he asked, but giving him a salary for a job he couldn’t do would be dishonest. If his brother wanted charity he could have it, but not under the false pretense of having earned it.

Note: The comparison to a whore house works on the following level: A woman is a lot of things. One part of that is her sexuality. When you say ‘come have a woman for $,’ such a thing really can’t be done. You might have some of her, but not all, and not the best of her. Without the mind and heart, the soul is not there. In purchasing a prostitute you get something of a ghost, not a full person, sort of a half-dead zombie. The whore pretends to like the person she is hired out to, but it’s all fake. People with half a brain have realized long ago that sex without a permanent fully committed relationship is nothing but a cheap trick, and leaves both parties ultimately alone and depressed. It is no wonder that religious texts denounce sexual relations outside of marriage as one of the greatest sins. What a mockery to God the Father and Creator of mankind. Don’t bring His majestic creation, His child, down to the level of an animal! To blaspheme the created is to blaspheme the Creator! Animals actually have it better than prostitutes, at least they get to have and enjoy offspring! Cursed be every man who employs a woman for mere sexual mechanics! He will soon learn that his investments in these things have left him fundamentally broken. If he does not turn and elect the grace of Christ, he will be forever damned. Rand would agree with this line of logic, even if she wouldn’t clothe it in religious terms. Strangely, libertarian John Stossel, though some of his work is brilliant and he is a fellow admirer of Rand, doesn’t get any of this and thinks legal prostitution is a fine idea. End note.

To be without purpose is the cardinal sign of a lack of character.

The title Atlas Shrugged suggests that when the people whose work upholds society stop getting rewarded for what they do, they stop doing it, and everything falls apart. If the more Atlas struggles, the heavier it gets, he will shrug. (He can’t hold an arbitrarily and increasingly heavier burden than what he already has.) When the more you push, the harder it gets, you shrug. The thought of looters using your product instead of honest men makes you want to destroy your product.

Those who live off others instead of working to make their own living are letting their wonderful existence go by in vain. (We are meant to create!)

 

Industrial champions who carry the weight of the world on their shoulders believe that everything is something. These industrial champions were often called greedy and self-centered but really they were the ones helping the most people via their products.

 

Note: Dinesh D’Souza in Stealing America points out how the two most charitable groups of people, who spend their time tending to others, are capitalists and clergy. Capitalism is how the human trait of greed is channeled into something positive. End note.

The crazy mainstream philosophers tried not to show the meaning of life, but that there was no meaning of life.

When the government tried to buy the business away from Hank Rearton, who was wildly successful, the government worker threatened Hank and told him that little businesses were suffering because of his big business. Hank would not sell even though his purpose in business was to get a profit, and the government offered him a very large profit. He would not sell because the Rearton metal was his product and he felt that it would be immoral to just take a bunch of money to not give any service, that it would be deception and lying to take a great product off the market just because it was great.

The great banker would not give a loan to someone who started to ask for the money based on personal pity for their circumstances. The interview ended immediately whenever someone started to do that. He considered it evil to take advantage of people’s pity by basing a loan on that. It was said that the great banker had the Midas Touch, whatever he touched turned to gold; he said it was because he knew which things to touch.

The greatest philosopher worked at making his living not because he had to survive but because it was the morally right thing to do. He was the last philosopher who believed in the value of work. Action is man’s foremost obligation, regardless of anything he feels.

 

Note: Often we have to push through and just get working even when we don’t feel like it. Learn to do that and you’ll be successful no matter what. End note.

 

Note: As for doing physical labor, there are interesting accounts in the Book of Mormon of societies where their preachers (you might say philosophers/teachers) taught freely, and worked just like everyone else. They had a day job and taught on the side as a public service. Socrates was also famous for being leery of the professionalization of teaching. Rand is a big advocate of being paid for everything, but there may be situations where some things are better left to volunteerism. End note.

People don’t like to think, thinking is hard. So when someone comes along preaching that we don’t need to think, they cling to that making what they know is their sin (laziness) seem to be a virtue.

It is most corrupt to suggest that the strong should not be able to accomplish things in order to protect the weak from feeling weak or of low self-esteem.

It is a sign of weakness to want to be surrounded by people who are inferior to you. It makes you very bored if that’s the future in store for you. Men who are really great want nothing more than for everyone around them to become like them, of the highest intelligence. (Note: Including their children.)

Hank would not sell to the government because the government had done so much damage to his business. Selling to the government would be like manufacturing the weapons of his own destroyers. The government had turned his business from a thriving thing which could research new things and do exponential things into something that was barely alive. The government was forcing him to sell certain people certain amounts of his product, taking away from him the rights of his own product, all in the name of a national emergency. But no one really defined the terms of what an emergency was, or to whom it applied. The government just used that as an excuse to feed the people without their having to do any work.

It is a sign of confidence for a woman to wait for her husband to come home in glad anticipation; the world today makes it seem like a woman is weak when she does that. In reality, this woman knows she is worth coming home to, worth anticipating.

The term “governmental scientific inquiry” is a contradiction of terms.

Getting paid for something you don’t do/earn is terrible, but earning high profits for what you do is honorable. An honest man won’t consume more than he has produced.

 

Note: And a holy man won’t use more than he needs, even if he has earned it, but will consecrate it. The holy man recognizes that all belongs to God, and that God has blessed him and wants him to share and invest in meaningful ways. End note.

Francisco’s speech on money at Jim’s wedding: Money isn’t the root of evil, but of production. (Note: The bible rebukes the love of money, not money itself. All reasonable people understand the role of money in freedom. End note.) Looters who steal money and moochers who cry for money are evil, but minds that create products that money represents represent the sum of human achievement.  Living by trade, the best product, the best performer wins.

 

Francisco’s speech continues: Trade means gain, not loss. Trade means we must deal with others by giving them things rather than whipping and driving them like beasts. Trade sets us apart from the beasts and sets each person equal to his neighbor, everyone gaining based on his effort and skill. Money will not buy happiness for a man without purpose.

 

Note: In other words, if you just want money for the sake of money rather than from making meaningful contributions to society, your money won’t make you happy. You can’t live for money. End note.

 

Francisco’s speech continues: If an heir is equal to his money, he thrives on it. If not, it destroys him. If the source of your money is corrupt, you’ve damned yourself and will have no joy but shame instead. If you sell a bad product which plays on the weaknesses of men then the money you make won’t bring you joy. (Note: junk food, porn, drugs, and stupid junk come to mind. End note.) If you steal your money, if you deceive others as to its worth, then money won’t bring you joy. Money is a source of virtue if it was rightfully earned. Those who scream that money is evil are the first ones to sell their soul for a nickel. They are upset that the money they wrongfully obtained won’t ease their seared conscience. Looters prey on rich people who hate money and take it from them quickly. Those who earned their money respect it. Those who got it by fraud hate it.

Men today try to exist not by right but by favor. They don’t seek to earn their way, but to have their way paid for them.

When a corrupt person inherits money, it’s not the money that corrupts him, it’s he that corrupts the money. Furthermore, the person who is worthy of inheriting money is the person who would have gained wealth whether or not he inherited money.

Pandering to men’s vices and catering to fools are corrupt ways to make money. Money gained in that way will not bring you true satisfaction. Those who have gained money in a corrupt way will see that all the things they buy with their money will haunt them rather than bring them peace. People who obtain their money in a corrupt way are who claim that money is evil.

 

Your money is the sign of the achievement of your greatest thinking; when you trade with other people, you’re trading your best thinking and work for their best thinking and work. Those who say that money is evil are usually leeches trying to get your money. Money demands of you you’re highest virtues if you wish to make it and keep it.

 

Those who do not defend their money as they would their life are those who do not have joy in their money; they will soon lose their money because the smell of the looters who have been hiding under rocks come out at the first sign of someone who apologizes for having money; they will hasten to relieve him of the guilt. People today consider it an unforgivable sin to like money and property, but these are the very things that motivate people to great achievements, which have a byproduct of helping everyone, bringing a booming economy.

Hitchhikers of virtue are those who live by force, who seek men of industry to create the meaning behind money, and then seek to take the money without creating any meaning themselves; it’s a double standard.

 

Just because they just pass laws saying that you can loot someone via the government doesn’t make it okay. Money is the barometer of a society’s virtue, and you know that the society has run out of virtue when trading is done not by consent but by compulsion. (Note: And it is immoral to vote away the rights of others. End note.) Society has no virtue when you need permission from the man who produced nothing.

 

Society has run out of virtue when men work not to produce goods but favors. Another sign of corruption is when the laws of the country don’t protect the producers but rather protect the looters from the producers’ rights. Money is so noble that it won’t compete with guns. a society which is half production and half looters will not survive. When you make the means of surviving into something evil, do not expect men to stay good.

 

By not using money that’s backed by gold and instead using checks that can bounce, it is just the looters holding others at gunpoint to provide for their checks and paper money; the financial bubble will burst, and men will be evil to hold up the corrupt standard.

 

Do not expect them to produce when producing is punished and looting is rewarded. Money is the lifeblood of production, and when people condemn the money industry, it fails, and people wonder why society crumbles around them.

 

When people condemn money, they start reverting to the savage jungle lifestyle, stealing existing resources from each other rather than producing goods to sell.

 

America is the first country in all of history that was built on justice, reason, and freedom. Throughout history, people have condemned industrialists and workers as people who create products, and they have exalted the looter aristocrats who sit around and take things.

 

When people are set up in slave scenarios, there’s very little that can be gained; now that we are not in slavery we can have a free mind and be free to produce. There’s a lot more to be gained that way. Freedom generates more prosperity than slavery, even if you’re the slave owner.

 

Note: People work better when offered something! Slavery has ended not just for moral reasons, but because it doesn’t house the creative genius that a free market does. The blessing of God is upon freedom, bringing greater prosperity therewith! End note.

 

Americans are the people who first invented the phrase “to make money.” All other nations considered that money and goods are things that are given back or forth, a zero-sum game; but in America, we make money, we build rather than take. We create rather than conquest. Looters think that money is only obtained from inheritance, begging, or stealing. “To make money” is a phrase that represents virtue.

 

You’ll be destroyed until you realize that money is the root of all good; it is how we trade with each other. (Note: Or rather, freedom to trade is the root of good. End note.) You can either have whips and guns or dollars – there is no in-between; those are the only two systems. (Note: Freedom or captivity. End note.)

 

The city wanted to force Hank to sell his products to them even though it would mean hurting his own company; he told the government that they could take his metal like a robber, seizing it from him, but he wouldn’t sell it to them; he wouldn’t accept any money in exchange to make it look like it was a fair or voluntary deal; if they’re going to take it, they could take it, he wasn’t going to pretend like it was an agreeable deal. If they wanted to arrest him he wouldn’t go quietly; they would have to do so at gunpoint. He wanted everyone to see how the government was behaving like a mob rather than to help the government make it look pretty and normal that they were seizing his property.

 

You earn your own living; that is the key. When Hank was that Court the accused of not being interested in the public good (because he wouldn’t let the government seize his products in the name of a supposed emergency), he told them that his efforts have helped the public good more than they ever would, but that his freedom to do his business wasn’t based in the fact that it was doing a lot of good for the society. His freedom was based on the fact that he is a free individual allowed to exist, allowed to make a product and trade it with other people. He had made his product with those who voluntarily consented to trade with him. Everything he did was based on voluntary participation, he didn’t force or steal from anyone.

 

Hank declared that the courts against him were invalid as they weren’t defending his human rights. Hank knew that if you let people call you evil when you are righteous, they start abusing you. The difference between a burglar and the government seizing your property for the public good is that the government wants you to sanction what they do.

Accepting someone’s invitation to a party is a sign and a way of telling them that you’re on good terms with that person. Everyone in society sees that you came and assumes you’re on good terms with that person. So if the person is inherently corrupt, don’t go to his party.

 

Note: This is why it is important not to attend gay weddings. To attend is to condone. The best way to show love to someone is to let them know what’s right and what’s wrong. In that they have the best hope for happiness. So the call for supporting such weddings in the name of kindness is an abomination. Jesus wouldn’t attend a ‘gay wedding.’ Can you imagine Jesus sitting there smiling as two men exchange romantic vows, blaspheming the word of His Father? Jesus cleansed the temples turning tables and driving the whip. That’s what Jesus would be doing at gay weddings. Marriage is a holy sacrament, not some mere social party. End note.

Sacrifice your emotions regarding a problem; this is the first thing you must let go of to give way to reason. Always assume responsibility. It is the opposite of what other people do; they use their emotions as a reason to excuse themselves from their responsibility.

The government makes so many rules that are not intended to be kept. They wait around looking for honest men to slip up on one of their silly rules so they can be blackmailed. The government has no power to rule innocent men; it only has power when someone is a criminal. When it runs out of criminals to rule, it makes more criminals by making these laws which are so numerous that they can’t be kept. They create lawbreakers by making laws that cannot be interpreted objectively or enforced. Then they make people feel guilty so they’ll give in to the blackmail.

They call those who create greedy. The honest are called cruel. Workers are called parasites. The purest are called materialists. It is a sin to accept unearned guilt, to let people call you evil when you are not. There’s a difference between a shallow materialist and someone who makes a quality product.

 

Note: Many study business not with a desire to create, but to get rich quick, like a shortcut to the good life. But there is no good life without honest work. There are no shortcuts. Business can be honest, but it can also be abused with intentions are not appropriate. End note.

 

The materialist who expects happiness to come from his materials unconnected with values; he is more unhappy the more materials he gets, and he chases cheap women to try and find happiness. He has no personal morals and is driven mad by the fact that he thinks of himself as a mere piece of meat. He grows tired of the whores and wishes that he could have a virtuous woman to sleep with who would, for some reason, make an exception in his case.

Another kind of man is one who separates the meaning of life from material things; from buildings, money, bodies, and so forth; though he calls himself virtuous and finds himself without affection for his wife. When it comes to sex, the cause is values, the effect is sex. In other words, sex won’t be fulfilling if you have no values as it represents a person’s values.

 

Those who chase silly women have a large inferiority complex. Sex is an expression of one’s own value. Sex represents your code of values, just like money. Tell me what kind of woman a man sleeps with, and I will tell you his entire philosophy on life. Man will always be attracted to the woman who reflects his deepest vision of himself. A man certain of his values will want the highest woman he can find, the strongest, the woman hardest to conquer, because only the position of a heroine will give him a sense of achievement, not a brainless slut. He does not seek to gain his value, he seeks to express it. A man who feels worthless will be drawn to a woman he despises. She will give him a momentary escape from the morals that damn him, a brief escape from the ugly mess he has made of his life.

 

Love is our response to our highest values and can be nothing else. When a man tricks himself into thinking that love is disconnected from values, he will learn to associate vice with pleasure, and virtue with misery. Then he starts to think sex is evil, that love is purely spiritual, and he finds himself disappointed in his relationship. Bodies and sex are good things when not used carelessly. Sex cut off from a code of values is the same issue as money cut off from a code of values. Both sex and money represent our values at the core.

It is evil to make something irrational seem believable so that people will start doubting their ability to reason.

When businesses fail the people suffer; they don’t get their food, etc. Government looters like to tell you that only the private greedy people suffer when businesses fail, not so. Society is made of production.

 

The government limits business and tries to get people to go along with the depraved circumstances of communism, saying things like “going through hard things together will make us a better people.” In reality they’re just holding us back from becoming great through voluntary exchange.

 

Note: Remember the COVID slogan to condone the tyranny: “We’re all in this together.”

Don’t assume people in power got there by greatness. Often weaklings are chosen to be set up as pawns as they can be trusted not to think, or to be corrupt.

To think that you can redistribute wealth so no one is poor is as insane as thinking that you can redistribute genius so no one is stupid. In reality, wealth generates more wealth for everyone, so don’t tear down wealth.

 

Note: Don’t “slay the golden goose” with things like graduated income tax. End note.

We do not allow injustice, even to ourselves; we do not allow self-mutilation; injustice is evil anyway you look at it. Sometimes we think, “it’s just me who has to suffer so it’s okay,” but it’s not okay; we should seek justice. When we repeatedly let others trample the righteous underfoot, it becomes the norm, and the entire society is damned, becoming brainwashed by fallen ideas that no one ever stands up against.

 

The industrialists were being taken down by centuries of evil people who denounced work, thrift, ingenuity, and ownership. The industrialists gave their fine products to these bad men and in this was their guilt: that they charged too little for so good a product; that they let it go to the swine; they allowed the masses to call them evil, and just ignored them instead of fighting them to define clearly what is truly good and what is truly evil. They let the people they fed boss them around.

 

Note: A few of bogus expensive lawsuits and bad press is a big part of it. Lawyercraft. But we cannot give in to fear. We must be wise, prudent, and brave. End note.

Some men work to have a job instead of working to create something. These men avoid responsibility and seek not to make decisions which they can be held accountable for; they refuse to do anything that isn’t written in their job description; they miss the bigger picture of what their job is; they seek to shift accountability to someone else because all they care about is having a job. They don’t care about the product they’re supposed to be making; they won’t put themselves at any risk; they are stagnant, unwilling to rise because they are unwilling to fall.

Robin Hood is not known for helping people who have been robbed but is known for giving to people who are in need just because they need; he takes things to give to needy people rather than producing things to meet their needs. He wanted to meet their needs without producing, without real effort. Thus, Robin Hood is a most immoral and contemptible symbol.

Instead of death and taxes as being the absolutes, production and life can be our moral absolutes.

Live by your standards even if you’re the only person who does.

In the world of the free market, the builder was expected to use his mind and to listen to his conscience in order to create the best product he could. But in the world of government, rather than being expected to think, the worker was expected only to obey.

One government worker was given an industry job not for his skills but as a political favor. He had learned in college that the way to get what he wanted was by fear, so he ordered people around to do wrong things, threatening to sue them, take them to court, and fire them. He didn’t have the business experience that teaches a person that being reasonable and offering incentives is really how to motivate people.

There is no such thing as a contradiction. If we are puzzled, we must check our premises.

To achieve is the greatest thing in life, and to love virtue is to love life.

Those who are independent and pay their own way and create things have control over material things; they don’t have to depend on material things like the looters do. People who build material things are the ones who value material things the least; they define what the material things are worth, they set the prices, and when they need to, they can walk away from the material things for a season when needed. They can afford to do this because they know how to rebuild them. But those who don’t build have to always cling to material things because they don’t know how to replicate them.

The railroad, the mines, all of these things were living things; the soul of them were those who created them. When others came and forced the creators to abandon the creation, it was like taking a soul out of a body, and the body became a corpse which no longer produced good but poison, because only the genius who created the machines and the sacrifice to make them come to pass could rightfully manage them and use them for good. Those who came in seeking something for nothing had to take away these bodies from these souls, and they found the bodies were useless; they could not handle them, they could not operate them, and the body ceased to represent the soul; the body of the machines, the companies, the railroads, the mines and so forth, these large companies represented freedom and the spirit of ingenuity; the excellence and the achievement of the people who made them. When government people put rules on them, stopping them and telling them how to do their work, those bodies, in other words, those in corporations and machines, no longer represented the creators of them, and they became worthless, void of meaning and unable to produce good things that were formerly used for the holy service of supporting the human race.

The communist experiment of an auto machine industry was that no one would get paid for their work, they would just get paid for their needs, and those with more talent would be required to work longer hours. They all wanted this system because they thought that they would get to have some of the unearned profits of those who were smarter and better than them, but in reality, all the people less smart & lazier below them took some, so everyone was losing and everyone became immoral. In a year of this, they all became looters, bums and began to hate each other. This was a project that promised to be out of love for brother, but they learned to hate each other more than they ever thought possible because of it. The communist plan involved paying them for being present rather than for having skills. Those with skill were punished by being required to do more, so they hid their skill. They instead became skilled in begging for free money, which was offered to all who had a good enough sob story. They spied on each other to try to catch each other cheating so they could have more money. They all lived in fear of one another rather than working together as a team. Perhaps ironically, when they worked for individual profit, they were more united than when they pooled their wages. Of course their company went bankrupt because of this.

 

Note: Cooperative enterprises can work in some limited circumstances, but certainly never by government force. End note.

 

When the communists were not allowed to spend money on hobbies so they turned to alcohol. How did they afford it? They broke into stores and did all kinds of crimes. Such is the nature of alcohol – they have it whether or not you can afford it, they find a way at any cost.

 

Everyone thinks that with communistic pooling of income they’ll reap free benefits from those who are smarter than themselves. But they forget that there are always people beneath them who want to benefit from them. No one wins in this scenario, no one perhaps except the person who does nothing.

 

In the free market everyone can win and no one must be sacrificed.  Benefiting your business will inherently benefit your children; benefiting your children inherently benefits society. In the government-controlled scenario you often have to choose between saving one or saving the other because it’s a zero-sum game. Government-controlled economies are about dividing what’s there rather than creating more. This means we all become losers.

In the private “Atlantis” city the industrialists built and escaped to, the men often had two jobs: one in farming or some other community activity like storekeeping or an orchard, and one in their business or industrial production, their science, etc. They paid each other for their services in gold, and the rates were low since they didn’t have to deal with looters, inflation, etc.

 

Among those who retreated from civilization were the economist who was not allowed to teach at a college for teaching that men ought to work in freedom. The history professor who taught that America is the greatest in the history of the world for making wealth by production rather than conquest. The banker who prided himself for having earned money. The engineer who felt bad creating an engine for looters. The doctor who was asked to work for the poor rather than for a wage. When asked what they were doing in this place, the answer was “living.” Finally they could live among people who weren’t constantly robbing and brainwashing them. The great medical doctor treated his patient quickly and effectively, like a mechanic giving a tune-up to a machine.

 

When Dagney struggled to stay focused due to great anxiety, she gave herself small orders/tasks to complete. Her mission was to walk to the elevator. Once there, her mission was to go to x location, etc. She had to keep moving, like a train, just keep moving even if it’s just in small ways, since any movement is better than stagnation.

 

All that John Galt needed to do to destroy the engine of the world was to do nothing. To withhold his gifts from the undeserving socialist looters. Without his help, their society could not progress nearly as fast. He refused to serve them on their terms, to be their slave. If the industrialists don’t support the looters, the looters’ society will revert to 3^rd world conditions. The looters can’t build anything; they just take.

 

The economics professor couldn’t get a job at colleges because he taught that you shouldn’t consume more than you produce. The history teacher couldn’t get a job at colleges because he taught that the people that live in the slums are not the people who made this country. The psychology teacher couldn’t get a job at the colleges because he taught that men are capable of thinking. These men fled to the city of the industrialists and they found industrial jobs and did quite well at them, and taught their honest intellectual trades on the side. The writer could not get a job because she believed that when one deals with words, one deals with the mind. She also went to the industrialist city, and she had two positions; almost everyone there had two positions, an industrial position and another position. She was the town fisher and the writer.

 

Note: The Book of Mormon teaches a similar message about an idea society. The teachers/intellectuals also worked with their hands. Everyone contributes to the manual labor, and everyone gets to pursue learning. End note.

 

There is no such thing as a lousy job, only a lousy man who doesn’t care to do it.

 

The purpose of life is to find joy through your work.

 

Note: Of course that work, particularly for women, also chiefly involves raising children. End note.

Note: The Book of Mormon teaches a similar message, that the purpose of life is joy! End note.

 

Never live for the sake of another person, and never ask another person to live for yours.

 

Note: We must maintain our individual identity and worth regardless of whatever organizations we belong to, including the organization of the family, a marriage, a school, or the government, etc. Our personal happiness is always important, and we shouldn’t let people boss us around. Giving to others voluntarily is one thing, but thinking it is charity to let others force you around like a slave, is not charity. When someone serves someone else because they really want to, you could say that such service isn’t really service at all but is self-serving, as it brings so much joy to the servant to see the other person happily receiving service. Remember Joseph Smith’s teaching that self-aggrandizement is a true principle, in that helping others simultaneously helps yourself. End note.

 

Note: I believe that the gospel of Christ, the whole point of religion, isn’t so different than capitalism. But it’s more of a long-term investment. Even Christ did His great sacrifice because of the joy that was set before Him. Even God does his work for glory. We work for joy. If there wasn’t joy in it we wouldn’t do it. But it often requires looking further than this life. This isn’t to say no amount of pleasure is available during life, there surely is, but it means that a life lived for God isn’t just wasted, it’s actually the wisest of all investments. God is the best employer, and He helps you become the best you can be. And the better you become, the more you can handle and thus the more you can enjoy! End note.

 

The industrialists were on strike against the world that had taken advantage of them for so long, restricting their access to their rightfully earned profits, their creations.

 

In the new city the doctor was able to devote time to researching new ways to treat things.

 

They didn’t want to reveal their inventions to the public because they weren’t worthy of them.

 

Note: Not casting the pearls before swine. And recall Alma’s teaching, that is not appropriate to reveal more than people can handle. The spirit guides us as to what we are permitted to teach. End note.

 

Justice never stops to exist; justice is the act of confessing what is real.

 

Note: Religious teachings say that to rule over men, one must be just. Further, they teach that God upholds justice. The Book of Mormon goes so far as to say that if God ever failed to uphold justice, he would cease to be God. The Latter-day Saint view of God would be quite attractive to Rand – namely that God is an exalted man! End note.

 

All work is an act of philosophy. Some honest intellectuals boycotted their regular jobs and went into jobs in which they weren’t giving their full gift to society. They couldn’t give their full gifts because society had abused them so long. They had to withhold knowledge and other gifts from people who had shown that their only intent was to take from them. Now, on strike, these Atlas’ were letting the socialist looters see clearly that it was they, the industrialists, who upheld the world.  There comes a point where it becomes immoral to participate in a system so broken, so far gone, that it no longer represents what you lived and worked for.

 

Note: The Jews are famous for doing this historically as well – working simpler jobs despite being qualified for more complex jobs when boycotting society. Better to be a street-sweeper in Zion than an accountant in Babylon! Of course there were other cases such as WW2 where the Jews were forced to work jobs below their skill out of force. End note.

 

John Golt and the others in Atlantis city watched those still in society, hoping and planning for their coming to Atlantis.

 

Whether it’s a symphony or a coal mine, all work is of the same value and significance because it is the expression of a rational mind; it is the capacity to see to connect and to make and collect things which have not been made or connected before. An excellent artist and an excellent industrialist have more in common than an excellent artist and a mediocre artist.

 

The surgeon left the main city for the private one because in healthcare the doctor was given no say in who or how he would treat even though it was he who had learned the painful lessons of how to be a physician.  It was all about the patient, and they never considered the physician.

 

If someone just goes off of feelings like something was created out of nothing, like a drunk man’s vomit just happened, if all they can do with their art is feelings, then they’re missing out on the work that goes into making art. Making great art is harder than any chain gang and it’s harder than what any drill sergeant would ask you to do; is the utmost discipline.

 

The one thing worse than the businessman who doesn’t know that what he does is art is the artist who thinks that the businessman is his enemy.

 

People often make the mistake of thinking that you don’t need to study philosophy if you are a physicist, or that you don’t need to study physics if you are a philosopher, but in reality, every physicist should understand the importance of thinking, and every philosopher should understand the importance of objective matter.

 

Note: Joseph Smith said everything is matter, that even spirit is matter, but in a more refined form. Everything is connected, and God doesn’t give temporal commandments – everything is spiritual. We are trying to connect all truth into one great whole. It is an ignorant society which doesn’t seek to master all knowledge, but only to have experts who specialize in one narrow field. As Hugh Nibley said, we need not just depth, but also breadth. We can’t chop things into individual segments and ignore the whole. We can learn from the great renaissance men who didn’t limit their studies to one field. Oh how tiresome are the engineering students I encountered who knew nothing of the humanities! And oh how foolish and imbalanced were the psychology students who knew nothing of the working world! End note.

 

Don’t seek for what you wish to come in the future, looking for some gift or ability from someone somehow, but instead hope for your dreams to come true because of what you personally will do and become.

 

Note: Approaching your future like a lottery is stupid and wicked. But this is exactly how the woke radical world operates: Everything is blamed on the system, nothing is the faut of the individual, the individual has no ability to change their circumstances, so they adopt a permanent victim mentality and waste their time advocating for more socialist policies. The left and right agree there are problems, but their approach of how to solve them is wildly different. I saw one consistent theme in the bogus social justice classes I had to take in college – their solution for every problem was more and more government. End note.

 

The three bright students worked while in college even though they didn’t need to; they also studied very hard during their degrees studying physics & philosophy; matters of food and sleep were often neglected, getting lost in the wonder of studying.

 

The world considers white lies which hide the truth as an act of mercy. It is not.

 

Note: As it was said in the TV miniseries on the Ukrainian nuclear power plant scandal at Chernobyl, “Eventually, the debt of truth must be paid.” The interest accruing on that debt of truth will make it so it will be much harder to pay than if you had just told the truth to begin with. End note.

 

You cannot hide reality, it always exists. You can’t get something you didn’t work for.

 

Note: And if you do, it comes back to bite you. It weakens your character. It sets you up for future failure. It robs you of the joy and added intelligence that come as a result of work. End note.

 

Machines can never replace bright minds. Without the minds of the people who make the machines, the machines will fall apart, no matter how good they are.

 

Note: And AI will never replace the need for people. Some resist automation thinking it will end jobs, but new jobs always come. End note.

 

To do something for someone else’s conviction is a great lie. You must stand by your convictions.

 

Note: Along these lines, Truman G. Madsen said while it is lying to say you know something when you really don’t, it’s also lying to say you don’t know something when you really do! End note.

 

The world is yours to make into what you will. That is the premise Dagney always held.

 

It was considered bizarre to have your own opinion that does not match the opinion of the government; they say whatever the government said is right and true, good peace and love. The government makes false reports of peace to keep the people calm and not rebellious.

 

People who don’t like to work feel like anything they’re asked to do at their job is an injustice, something they don’t deserve, and any assistance they give they consider to be going above and beyond.

 

To give someone your body is to give them your mind, your will, everything. It is no trivial thing, and it represents one’s will.

 

The person who lies lives in a false world does so because he has to fake his life; it’s all pretend.

 

Note: Many today live in virtual worlds and avoid reality. Many are too focused on worlds of fiction. As Hugh Nibley said, we all have a full time job learning the history of our world. As the mother of Dimitri Mendeleev said, beware illusion and focus on divine and scientific truth. There is a place for fiction, but that place is to teach us lessons of reality, not to fill us with utter silliness. These are but a few examples. Others live in fake worlds by getting bogus certifications and degrees and working at bogus jobs where they don’t accomplish anything. End note.

 

When you have learned to love someone you will always respect and admire them, even if your paths turn in different directions.

 

Note: This is true, but let’s talk about something important. More commitment to a relationship should exist than what is shown in Rand’s book where the woman leaves a man she is with because a better man comes along, especially as they had already been involved sexually and should have been married. The better way is to not give yourself to someone without permanent commitment to them, with the only exception being gross abuse. The best way to live is to commit to someone in marriage, then to grow together and help one another. You don’t just abandon someone who has given their self to you when someone better comes along. Of course the other side of this is that you don’t just let yourself go into a sloppy life once you’ve married – you owe it to that person to continue pushing toward your best self. We should not expect perfection, but excellence and continual improvement. Perfection is the end goal. But we don’t abandon one another when it seems there is someone else who might be closer to perfection than you or your partner is. We don’t make our social contracts so flimsy. End note.

 

The looters/politicians/welfare recipients branded an economy of favors instead of products. They weren’t creating anything but were just offering other people’s stuff to each other.

 

The cheating executive will feel just as the beggar – they have no joy. He will not find joy in having money and will be indifferent as to whether he has a lot of it or none of it. He has not earned his money, and it therefore brings him no joy. He does not know the meaning of happiness from work because he gets his money from begging and being deceptive.

 

Honest people are never touchy about being trusted. They know they can stand by what they are selling. This includes personal relationships. Further, they don’t require much introduction or acclimation, because they aren’t trying to hide anything.

 

Note: Dating should operate similarly. Strange are the courtships that last months and years. People with honest intentions don’t take forever to become acquainted. Latter-day Saints are known for marrying young and rather quickly because they have high quality young people who have been taught to live honestly, to have high standards, and that marriage is a very noble path in life which God expects and hopes that all of His children will take, just as He took that path. End note.

 

It is the man who gets drunk all the time who claims that the world is out of his control and says that ‘the world is how it was when we found it and we can’t do anything about it.’ With this bogus attitude he makes bad choices and wastes his time. This way of thinking is just to excuse his idleness. This type is found in bars and among cheating executives.

 

You can’t separate a man from his work. When you marry someone, the things that person has done tell you a lot about who they are; we can’t separate what they do from their name.

 

Note: And if he has repented from foolish ways and built a new life, that is a positive accomplishment. Many are stuck in foolishness. The nature of life is such that people truly can change. Bad habits can be done away with. When you see a person is virtuous, you don’t need to worry too much about their past mistakes. It’s the person that persists in and justifies his mistaken ways that you need to worry about. End note.

 

Jim held up suffering instead of sacrifice as his first goal. He didn’t know how to meet goals because he blamed things on others rather than working. In his view, nothing that ever went wrong was his fault.

 

The welfare people want unearned love, unearned greatness, unearned accomplishment. They want to be loved for themselves, not for what they are doing. They just want to take. They don’t work to be great like a great industrialist who works to build something, they’re just in the business of asking favors and giving favors (i.e. giving other people’s stuff away) and taking pills and throwing parties and manipulating the true worker’s business. The looters worked in politics rather than business; when industry broke down everyone suffered.

 

The welfare man accused the industrial woman of being a spiritual gold digger because she wanted to love someone who had character, morality, honesty, accomplishments, and so forth. The welfare man said that looking for those traits in someone to love is spiritual gold digging and the industrial woman responded that the welfare man was trying to get something for nothing; unearned love based in nothing; that’s the root of everything he did. He did not want to work hard to become something great, he was just someone who cheated other people and sold people out to the government by government bills and various schemes and conspiracies.

 

Many are afraid of upright people.

 

Note: Elder Bruce R McConkie said the wicked are always living in fear of the moment when the righteous will come down in holy indignation against them. (see book The Mortal Messiah). End note.

 

The people in the government are just mobsters when they claim that love is blind.

 

In the presence of people who are unfair and take advantage of others (as is often seen in government power grabs and socialism), we can feel intimidated and wonder how we can exist while those people exist. But we must go on being honest and independent. We must be ourselves; we must continue to believe what is right even when the philosophers of our day say that things are up to interpretation, bendable, and more of a goo than an iron; we must stand up and say that reality is real.

 

We can stand strong in the midst of all of the corruption; the rule is that we always stand by the verdict of our own mind.

 

Note: or perhaps rather that we seek to understand the will of God with our own mind, and to ask God for a revelation to understand His ways personally. For a long time the prophets have taught that we are to gain our own knowledge rather than just believe others. Jesus taught that He is full of grace and TRUTH, and that we can KNOW, not just believe. End note.

 

The evil woman could not bring people to kneel down before her in admiration, so she brought them to kneel down before her in slavery by taking away all they had.

 

Depending on what it is used for, sex can be a most holy thing or a most evil thing. Does it celebrate excellence or celebrate debauchery? Is it between thieves or between honest people? Is it for cheap pleasure, or is it for uniting great dreams?

 

Note: And creating new people, whom you both will fill with your dreams and whom you will build together to approach those dreams. Indeed, creating a clone of yourselves together is one of the greatest manifestations of love for one another, and is one of the greatest ways to state of love of life and to perpetuate your ideas through the world. End note.

 

Socialists destroy themselves while blaming some unknowable evil for their destruction.

 

Socialists at first say: ‘Why should we suffer while other people have so much’, and then they take from the people who have a lot. Later they say; ‘Why should we suffer while there are some people who have enough to last them for years’, and then they take more, and then they say; ‘Why should we suffer while others have enough to last for months’, and so on until via redistribution of wealth they’ve drained the entire industry which was holding up society.

 

Note: Those who don’t make money don’t know how to hold onto or properly use it. Forced wealth redistribution is anti-freedom, anti-justice, and blows up free and prosperous society. Everything America stands for dies when economic freedom dies. End note.

 

Give loans not alms. Support producers, not consumers.

 

Note: Alms can be appropriate in some limited settings. Those unwilling to work and try to improve must face the natural consequences of their choices. The best type of service for the poor is to help them find work and to teach them how to work. Often giving cash to street beggars just perpetuates their corrupt lifestyle, and many church leaders have indicated that there are smarter ways to serve the poor than by dishing out random cash. End note.

 

Socialist moochers just want to take. They think that the industrialists never suffer, but in reality, the socialist welfare people sit around all day while industrial people work and suffer all day.

 

Many courtrooms operate on a set of rules which don’t have much to do with right and wrong, and you basically know the outcome before the hearing even happens; the hearing is just to give the bunch of people jobs who sit there and recite the various rules that enact various things; there’s not really any judgment of right and wrong taking place at all. Though they were there in the name of justice, they all believed that there was no such thing as justice.

 

The real crime was committed by those who made regulations on business, not the industrialists resisting compliance. The industrialists are forced to operate in the strange ways of the legalists, or they’re threatened that their business will be shut down.

 

Those who are industrial and admire the great industrialists are better than the great government looters in high places. Even though they are in what many call lowly ranks, they are still on the right side of the war. There isn’t an honest job that’s bad, only people not honest enough to accept them.

 

If a person wishes to rise in the market through honest trade, to develop his talent through great performance, he may do so. It’s those who wish to rise without achievement we must beware of. Also those who sell cheap products which play at the vices of men are not really offering any skill or quality product, they’re just taking advantage of men’s weakness, and their business is immoral.

Note: Vendors of pornography drugs and junk food would fall into this category of dishonest business, taking advantage of the weakness and ignorance of the masses. Or get rich quick scams. Or any trashy product marketed as a quality product. Marketing today involves a lot of deception. A good product should speak for itself. End note.

 

It is immoral to be a mere pragmatist.

 

When things are transferred from the private sector to the government sector, the benefits start to go away. They stop caring about customer satisfaction.

 

The socialists believe that only experts should think and that only experts should be trusted. Socialists say you shouldn’t bother looking into medicine or engineering unless you are a physician or engineer. They teach that it’s essentially not profitable for the common man to think. They teach that men should rely only on authority. Inherent in this thinking is the idea that mankind is weak and stupid. On the contrary, you should expect greatness of the commoner. You should put power in his hands, rather than dictate everything in his life.

 

Note: RFK Jr. taught a similar message in his fight against Big Pharma. America is about people making their own choices, not leaving decision making to a few people at the top. We can hear what experts have to say and make our own informed opinions. Freedom is the key. End note.

 

Note: Elder Dallin H. Oaks warned of the consequences of leaving things to scholars. He said, “I have seen some persons attempt to understand or undertake to criticize the gospel or the Church by the method of reason alone, unaccompanied by the use or recognition of revelation. When reason is adopted as the only—or even the principal—method of judging the gospel, the outcome is predetermined. One cannot find God or understand His doctrines and ordinances by closing the door on the means He has prescribed for receiving the truths of his gospel. That is why gospel truths have been corrupted and gospel ordinances have been lost when left to the interpretation and sponsorship of scholars who lack the authority and reject the revelations of God.” (Elder Dallin H. Oaks

Alternate Voices, April 1989) End note.

 

When the copper mine was nationalized, the real owner blew it up and said, “Brother, you asked for it.” Then the economy tanked.

 

Most college diplomas aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on.

 

Note: Unless you live in a rigged society like we do where arbitrary value is assigned to the diplomas. But the point is that much of what goes on at colleges is bogus, soft, brainwashing, and teaches lessons of pandering rather than creating. Particularly in the social sciences. End note.

 

Note: Ezra Taft Benson warned against social sciences being taught at colleges these days. He said, “in many cases a higher degree today, in the so-called social sciences, can be tantamount to a major investment in error. Very few men build firmly enough on the rock of revelation to go through this kind of indoctrination and come out untainted. Unfortunately, of those who succumb, some use their higher degree to get teaching positions even in our Church Educational System, where they spread the falsehoods they have been taught.” (ET Benson Teachings p.319) End note.

 

It is evil to love suffering; to think that people are better off when they suffer; to consider that the fruits of one’s labor should not be given to the laborer. It is wrong to consider that wages are unworthy of the hire.

 

Note: The Bible says the laborer is worthy of his hire (1 Tim. 5:18 & Luke 10:7).

 

Labor that requires no thought is exhausting.

 

Pain is something to be fought and then thrown aside; it is not something to expect to be there always.

 

When you learn of a better way, go to the better way. If you understand your way to be the best, hold to it. But if you find a better way, go to that. Stick to your convictions. When you’re ready for the higher ways, they’re ready for you.

 

Note: This is similar to what Joseph Smith said, “When we understand the character of God, and know how to come to Him, He begins to unfold the heavens to us, and to tell us all about it. When we are ready to come to Him, He is ready to come to us.” Joseph’s view of God was that He is a person on another planet with a body, from a more advanced society than ours, who sends us messages and tries to help us avoid our own self destruction. The commandments of God aren’t so much His idea as they are the laws of nature. He can’t help them, He must abide by them too to avoid His own self destruction. He wants us to learn His ways so we can be truly free. He said, ‘ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.’ (John 8:32) End note.

 

Note: When talking about finding better ways, particularly when dealing with Rand’s books, I must add a caution: beware jumping from one marriage to another. Instead, grow together, lift each other. If you were drawn together in the first place, you’re probably not so different, and can make it work together. It is more noble to stay together. End note.

 

Sometimes we avoid understanding because we are afraid. Afraid of the consequences that would come from understanding the truth. So we keep telling ourselves it’s not our fault because we don’t understand. In reality, it is our fault, as we had access to the truth but didn’t bother to take a look.

 

Note: With more understanding comes more responsibility, but also if we understand where to look but don’t, we are accountable. I’m reminded of a scientist who was brought to a site where human footprints were seen alongside dinosaur prints. The news asked him if he saw anything there that challenges evolution theory. He said ‘no, I didn’t see anything that threatened evolution.’ The trick was, he refused to look at the prints! When we intentionally evade evidence like this, it makes us liars! End note.

 

Justice will forgive miles of innocent steps of wrong but will not forgive one step of conscious evil.

 

To feel without thinking is vanity.

 

Note: This could include many things, certainly drug use, emotional and sexual intimacy with strangers, reckless spending of money, prolonged wasting of time, unwillingness to learn new things, seeking employment where you won’t have to think, unwillingness to think deeply, etc. End note.

 

We enable looters when we let them to take from us to extort us instead of standing up for what is right. It is not right for those who produce to go without while those who do not produce have. It’s not right for those who can’t think to lead, and it’s not right for those who can lead to obey foolish leaders.

 

Note: Sometimes in the church a foolish leader is called. Truman G. Madsen taught that sometimes that can be to test your patience. Some are called to lead us, others are called to test us. So while we always remain committed to truth, we should also give some respect to church leadership, even when they are wrong. The parable of the Ten Virgins applies to the church, and even Ezra Taft Benson taught that some of its leaders magazines etc. are on the wrong side (on at least some issues). So ultimately, we can never relinquish our responsibility to think for ourselves, even while we value inspired leaders. End note.

 

Note: Here are a few more quotes about standing for what’s right even when some around us in the church do not:

1. Benson taught that the greatest injuries to the Church come from within. He initially quotes President McKay they expounds. Here is the quote: “The Church,” says President McKay, “is little, if at all, injured by persecution and calumnies from ignorant, misinformed, or malicious enemies.” (The Instructor, February 1956, p. 33.) It is from within the Church that the greatest hindrance comes. And so, it seems, it has been. Now the question arises, will we stick with the kingdom and can we avoid being deceived? Certainly this is an important question, for the Lord has said that in the last days the devil will “rage in the hearts of . . . men,” (2 Nephi 28:20) and if it were possible he shall “deceive the very elect.” (Joseph Smith 1:5-37.) (Ezra Taft Benson, Be Not Deceived, Oct. 1963)
2. President Packer, referring to progressive attacks on church doctrine, warned that not all the persecution against the saints comes from outside of the church. He said, “Atheists and agnostics make nonbelief their religion and today organize in unprecedented ways to attack faith and belief. They are now organized, and they pursue political power. You will be hearing much about them and from them. Much of their attack is indirect in mocking the faithful, in mocking religion. The types of Sherem, Nehor, and Korihor live among us today (see Jacob 7:1–21; Alma 1:1–15; Alma 30:6–60). Their arguments are not so different from those in the Book of Mormon. You who are young will see many things that will try your courage and test your faith. All of the mocking does not come from outside of the Church. Let me say that again: All of the mocking does not come from outside of the Church. Be careful that you do not fall into the category of mocking.” (President Boyd K Packer,  Jan. 16 2007 Lehi’s Dream and You – Boyd K. Packer – BYU Speeches))
3. Elder Benson taught that the Church is not divided, there’s just people who aren’t in harmony with it, and yes, they write in our Church publications. Benson said, Sometimes we hear someone refer to a division in the Church. In reality, the Church is not divided. It simply means that there are some who, for the time being at least, are members of the Church but not in harmony with it. These people have a temporary membership and influence in the Church; but unless they repent, they will be missing when the final membership records are recorded. It is well that our people understand this principle, so they will not be misled by those apostates within the Church who have not yet repented or been cut off. But there is a cleansing coming. The Lord says that his vengeance shall be poured out “upon the inhabitants of the earth . . . And upon my house shall it begin, and from my house shall it go forth, saith the Lord; First among those among you, saith the Lord, who have professed to know my name and have not known me” (D&C 112:24-26). I look forward to that cleansing; its need within the Church is becoming increasingly apparent. Not only are there apostates within our midst, but there are also apostate doctrines that are sometimes taught in our classes and from our pulpits and that appear in our publications. And these apostate precepts of men cause our people to stumble. As the Book of Mormon, speaking of our day, states: “. . . they have all gone astray save it a few, who are the humble followers of Christ; nevertheless, they are led, that in many instances they do err because they are taught by the precepts of men” (2 Ne. 28: 14). The world worships the learning of man. They trust in the arm of flesh. To them, men’s reasoning is greater than God’s revelations. The precepts of man have gone so far in subverting our educational system that in many cases a higher degree today, in the so-called social sciences, can be tantamount to a major investment in error. Very few men build firmly enough on the rock of revelation to go through this kind of an indoctrination and come out untainted. Unfortunately, of those who succumb, some use their higher degree to get teaching positions even in our Church educational system, where they spread the falsehoods they have been taught. President Joseph F. Smith was right when he said that false educational ideas would be one of the three threats to the Church within (Gospel Doctrine, pp. 312-13).” (Ezra Taft Benson, To The Humble Followers of Christ, April 1969, http://www.gapages.com/divided.htm)
4. In the same address, Benson equates Jesus’ appointing with Judas the traitor with elements existing in the latter-day church. He said, “The Lord strengthened the faith of the early apostles by pointing out Judas as a traitor, even before this apostle had completed his iniquitous work (John 13:21-30). So also in our day the Lord has told us of the tares within the wheat that will eventually be hewn down when they are fully ripe.” (Ezra Taft Benson, To The Humble Followers of Christ, April 1969, http://www.gapages.com/divided.htm)
5. Ezra Taft Benson quoted President Kimball in teaching that many in the church reject the current prophet and try to get the prophet to not speak on evolution etc. He said, “It is the living Prophet who really upsets the world. “Even in the Church”, said President Kimball, “many are prone to garnish the sepulchers of yesterday’s prophets and mentally stone the living ones.” Why? Because the living prophet gets at what we need to know now, and the world prefers that prophets either be dead or mind their own business. Some so-called experts of political science want the prophet to keep still on politics. Some would-be authorities on evolution want the prophet to keep still on evolution. And so the list goes on.” (Elder Ezra Taft Benson, The 14 Fundamentals of Following the Prophet; https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/ezra-taft-benson/fourteen-fundamentals-following-prophet/)
6. Elder Neal A. Maxwell also warned of these wolves among the flock. He said, “True, the enemies and the critics of the Lord’s work will not relent; they only regroup. Even among the flock, here and there and from time to time, are a few wolves, wearing various styles of sheep’s clothing—ironically, just before the shearing season! A few defectors and “high-minded” traitors (2 Tim. 3:4) even go directly to the “great and spacious building” to hire on (1 Ne. 8:26). Their recruits are celebrated and feted until—like their predecessors—they have faded into the dark swamps of history.” (“For I Will Lead You Along” By Elder Neal A. Maxwell, Apr. 1988, https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1988/04/for-i-will-lead-you-along?lang=eng)
7. Elder Maxwell further encourages us to stay on the right course, knowing that these worldly philosophers will be overturned. He said, “We surely have been warned and forewarned about our time, a period in which the compression of challenges may make a year seem like a decade. Members will be cleverly mocked and scorned by those in the “great and spacious building,” representing the pride of the world (1 Ne. 8:26, 1 Ne. 11:36). No matter, for ere long, He who was raised on the third day will raze that spacious but third-class hotel!” (Elder Neal A. Maxwell, “Overcome … Even As I Also Overcame” Apr. 1987)
8. In case we had any doubt about who was in that great and spacious building, President Monson specifically identified it as those who reject scripture. He said, “The great and spacious building in Lehi’s vision represents those in the world who mock God’s word and who ridicule those who embrace it and who love the Savior and live the commandments.” (President Thomas S. Monson, May You Have Courage, April, 2009)
9. In our rejection of worldly philosophers, Church leaders can stand as a guide for taking the right direction. Elder Ezra Taft Benson taught, “If we want to know how well we stand with the Lord, then let us ask ourselves how well we stand with His mortal captain. How closely do our lives harmonize with the words of the Lord’s anointed — the living Prophet, the President of the Church, and with the Quorum of the First Presidency?” (Elder Ezra Taft Benson, The 14 Fundamentals of Following the Prophet, https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/ezra-taft-benson/fourteen-fundamentals-following-prophet/)

End of quotes on standing for the right even when there is division in the church. End note.

You discover what it really means to be alive when you want something and work to make it happen.

Socialists teach that there are no values, only social customs; they teach that what we do does not matter, that it’s all based on popular opinion and custom. They will not allow such ideas as right and wrong, or the existence of good and evil.

 

Note: It’s the same thing with ‘democratic socialism’; the rule of law disappears, and you’re ruled by the gang majority; 2 wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner won’t work out well for the sheep. Further, whether forced into socialism or a majority electing to get into socialism, it’s slavery either way. Only a 100% vote should allow such a thing. So long as one person doesn’t want to give up the human right to be free, socialism should not be something you can ‘democratically choose’ to make him do. This also would assume that your children want to be slaves too, so each generation would have to decide. Socialism kills individual human rights and is a gross evil. End note.

 

The wicked say that when a human dies it’s just like when an animal dies, that it makes no difference, and that there are no values.

 

Often the college professors betray their students as the students seek for knowledge and reason and the professors deliver the students to evil looters, to evil socialists teaching the children that there are no morals. Socialistic schools teach the children that it is bad to think (teaching them instead to repeat popular agenda laden ideas). The mind is the human’s way of survival and the schools teach man not to use it. They teach not to stand out but to belong; not to understand but to obey; not to ask but to submit; not to struggle but to compromise. They say ‘who are you to know, society knows best’;  they say ‘who are you to know, your parents know best’, (Note: Or the trend now, they say that the government knows better than your parents. End note.) Schools focus on appeals to authority without teaching students how to think for themselves. The way they teach children is like a bird pecking the feathers off its baby and pushing it out of the nest to survive – they are disarming the human with the power of his form, which is the power of his mind. They’re sending away the graduated students with cheap phrases, talking points of socialism.

 

The fruit of the teachings of the socialist philosophers and mystics are armed thugs who use force as a means of getting others to give them what they have not earned.

 

One man can change the city; the socialist wants you to think that you are insignificant and that one person can’t make a difference.

 

Note: A recurring theme in The Book of Mormon is that one person indeed has the power to sway many things, even civilizations. Believe in the individual, not the system! One righteous voice in the wilderness can do more than a thousand trendy compromising voices united! End note.

 

Socialists force others to trade happiness for duty when, in reality, they could have done their duties with happiness.

 

Humans are separate from animals – they must choose to have morals – they have to choose to value life or not; it won’t just happen, they have to make a conscious choice about choosing to love life and choosing to work.

 

Your life is irreplaceable and of great value. This is the opposite of what many of the philosophers of our time teach.

 

A person is an end in and of themselves; in other words each person is inherently good.

 

Note: People are inherently good, but they’re also inherently fallen and in need of training.

 

Each person is someone who deserves to enjoy himself, but has to work for it. It’s not just good to help others, it’s also good to help yourself and let yourself enjoy the fruits of your labor.

 

Note: Joseph Smith told one man who had done much work for the building up of God’s kingdom, that this brother needed to rest a while, to enjoy himself. The man responded, “I cannot”. Joseph said, “Then you will die.” The man indeed later died a premature death. Joseph Smith was known to be easily drawn to laughter, and frequently played with children and his brethren, engaging in sports and joking with them. He said we shouldn’t be too involved in the fantastic, but that a good sense of humor is of God. Many saw Hyrum Smith as more prophet-like than Joseph, as Hyrum was less jovial and playful (see Truman G. Madsen lectures on Joseph Smith). The true character of God is revealed in Joseph Smith. As The Book of Mormon reads, “men are that they might have joy” (2 Ne. 2:22). End note.

 

Some people separate our ability to reason and our ability to have morals, but in reality, reason is where we get our morals, and one’s mind is the measuring rod.

 

Note: There’s some truth to this but also limitations. Reason is not the only source of morals. We tried just relying on reason in the French Revolution and that didn’t turn out well (it was a reign of terror). We tried just relying on reason in the 20^th century atheist dictatorships and tens of millions were executed. Dennis Prager in Still the Best Hope treats this subject well. End note.

 

Unfocusing the mind intentionally, blanking out, refusing to think, these are great evils. Some consider that reality isn’t real if you ignore it. By suspending your logic and reason, you are suspending your identity and your person, your existence; you’re refusing to say, ‘I am.’ (like God says.)

 

Note: God identified himself as I AM, aka the truly living one, the one who has found the true way to not only enjoy existence, but to have that status of joy/fully alive perpetually; the fact that Christ resurrected his body shouts this fact. End note.

 

When you say, ‘who knows,’ it’s another way of saying, ‘how can I know I don’t matter.’ Rationality is life, irrationality is death. Those who ignore reality will be wiped out by reality; for example, if they think someone’s going to give them food that they didn’t earn, they will perish.

 

To be productive is to choose to live. On the other hand, to punish people for producing it is to wear the black mask of death worship. Business regulations, mandatory licenses, and graduated income tax are a few examples of punishing people who produce.

 

If someone has to be your leader it must be chosen, not forced upon you, or else your mind will rot and your value of life will die.

 

Note: But if you act tyrannically or like a slave, expect others to come in and control you. End note.

 

Virtue is not an end in and of itself; it is not a sacrificial reward; virtue is rather a means to the end of joy; the reason we are virtuous is so that we can be joyful; you cannot have joy without virtue. Life is the reward of virtue. Virtue includes, among other things, being honest, treating others fairly, promoting an honest product, etc.

 

Note: To live virtuously may not always appear to be ‘the good life.’ You might know some people who are living it large despite their poor choices. It does take some faith to continue in the path of virtue. In the religious context we also see virtue to mean power; it also refers to chastity, and suggests that we lose power when we are unchaste. Rand would agree that those who give their body to strangers are cheating themselves of the power, self-esteem, and unity they could have otherwise had. End note.

 

Values are the fuel we put in the motor of ourselves; if we put in the wrong fuel, it will wreck that motor; you must have the right values, which are compatible with human beings.

 

If you do A, then B happens. If you do A and you expect C to happen, you’re going to be miserable. You must confess reality.

 

Happiness isn’t the satisfaction of whatever blind whims that you indulge; joy is to live in a state of noncontradiction.

 

Joy involves not escaping from mind, but using your mind to its fullest.

 

Note: Amusement, literally meaning ‘without thought’, can only bring a person so much joy. The roller coaster, the junk food, the cheap thrills, the bad women, the easy money, these only takes a person so far. Life’s deepest joys come from embracing thought and work, not avoiding it. This isn’t to say there is no place for simply pleasures, but it does mean we must keep things in perspective, be wise, and avoid things that will bring great regret. Don’t sell your birthright for a mess of porridge like Esau. End note.

 

The joy of a drunkard is nothing compared to the joy of a creator. The Creator relies on rationality.

 

A trader is someone who earns what he gets. Living off government welfare rather than setting your own hand to some form of industry will bring the result of an identity crisis and major depression as you’re not becoming anything. (Note: And even if you do foot your own bills, if you aren’t making personal progress in meaningful ways, you’ll be depressed. End note.) A person who trades does not ask to be paid for his failures and does not ask to be loved for his flaws. Someone who trades doesn’t squander his body as fodder, he doesn’t abuse others as fodder, and he doesn’t use himself as alms. The values of friendship, love, and esteem appear in someone who knows trade, aka work ethic, not those who sit around seeking something for nothing. Idlers have no concept of good virtues, even if they claim to have them.

 

Note: This is why Christ taught that a person in prison can’t pay the utmost farthing. Sitting in prison you can get lots of ideas, but you can’t do much. One thing you can do in prison of course is write – many important books, like much of the Bible, have been written in prison.  End note.

 

Mystics throughout the ages railed against the people who trade and have spoken highly of the looters and lazy people. The trader is a man of justice; it is someone the wicked dread.

 

Relationships must be entered into voluntarily, and when someone has a problem with it, then you part ways; everything is voluntary.

 

Note: This is true, but there should be serious commitment going into a marriage. You work things out. You both make major investments in each other, and it is extremely inhumane to walk away from a marriage based on a whim. But there is the ability to end a marriage for extreme cases. We are too casual about this these days. Family scientists show that most humans get in arguments sometimes, and that greatest joys of relationships are had among those who work together to find resolutions. End note.

 

We have nothing to gain from stupidity and human vices; the only value man can offer is the work of his mind. In whatever his craft, man must engage his mind and improve upon his methods and produce. To cease to improve is to die.

 

Note: You might describe many people as ‘the living dead’ when they have stopped progressing and live as slaves, drowning out their conscience with endless entertainments. The ‘zombie apocalypse’ is upon us! End note.

 

When you have a disagreement with another rational person, you let reality determine who is right, and either they will learn, or you will learn.

 

Morality ends where a gun begins. Force and mind are two opposites. When you start to force someone you take away their mind. Force takes away ones ability to reason. It’s just as bad as taking away their vision because when you take away someone’s resources to live by forcing, this is what you’re doing – you’re taking away their means of survival.

 

Force can only be used against someone who is trying to force you; it is never right to force someone to do anything unless you’re defending yourself from them forcing you. Those who use force only to defend themselves are using it to destroy force. (When you must defend yourself from those who threaten your life with a gun, you are defending, not ending, your morality.)

 

Government says if you don’t do things this certain way we’ll take your property.  Your property is your means to live, a reflection of your mind. Government takes away your mind when they take away your property. Your mind is what you employed to obtain your property.

 

People who use terror instead of proof to get people to agree with them shut out the mind and with it the will to live. Reality demands of man that man act for his own rational interest.

 

Force in an evil destructive way to gain things that do not belong to you.

 

Note: Some training of children by parents requires force. You teach them to brush their teeth, to eat vegetables, to not run into the street. Your life is in their hands. You at times must use force as needed to secure their safety, and to set them up for a successful life. Further than basic safety, you also train them to be respectable, to abide the laws, to look people in the eye, to work hard, to read, to think, and many important things. You don’t allow them to shrivel up into a fraction of what they could become with the excuse of letting them have their way. Children do have agency and freedom to chose in various things, but the parent who shirks their duty to set real limits on their children will rue the day that they neglected their duty to bring children up in the way they should go. Dr. Leonard Sax in his Collapse of Parenting has a few good teachings along these lines of how we have forgotten the natural ways of parenting and have replaced them with a zero-authority bogus approach to parenting which is producing fragile helpless and miserable people. The new ‘nice’ isn’t so nice after all. Treating someone forever like a baby is hardly nice or morally superior. The parent must setup real rewards and real consequences. Children can use their agency to make bad choices, but they must know that unwanted consequences will follow those bad choices. There term ‘free agency’ can be misleading when we think that we can do whatever we want without consequences. That’s not how the adult world works, and it is the duty of parents to create a world for their children that operates similarly, not to forever coddle their children in idleness and stupidity. Parents have a serious job to do, and must stop blaming everything on the choices of their children. Of course a parent can take it to far, but in today’s culture we mostly have a problem with permisivity, not pushing them toward greatness enough. End note.

 

Light is not the absence of darkness; joy is not the absence of pain; intelligence is not the absence of stupidity; the absence of destruction is not the same thing as building. If you just sit around and say, “We’re not destroying anything,” then nothing is going to get built. Just not making things worse doesn’t make you a good person; it’s making things better that makes you a good person.

 

Note: Not making things worse is a good start, but we can do better than that. Sometimes when we have a good system, like the US Constitution, our job is to uphold that system. Some of our best presidents, like Coolege, have been ones who have maintained the government without growing it. Government should stay small so individuals can grow. The more government, the less freedom. The duty of man isn’t to grow the government, its to grow themselves. End note.

 

Don’t live just to avoid pain, live to be happy. Don’t live just to avoid punishment, live with a purpose to build things.

 

We don’t wish to avoid death, we seek to live life. We spend our time living, not worrying about death.

 

Note: We must be aware of death and prepare for the next life, but not to the point of being paralyzed here and now. End note.

 

Doesn’t think that fear is the more powerful motivator.

 

Don’t start your philosophy by saying that man is evil; that’s setting us up to fail. We come from a standard of good, not a standard of evil.

 

Note: Brigham Young taught that Adam and Eve were two of the greatest people that ever lived. Hugh Nibley teaches that the first humans on earth were like the founders of a great university – the university starts with brilliant people, setting the example for the students to follow. The beginning mankind was not by idiots in caves, but by brilliant and righteous minds. Many atheists bash Christians for stating that mankind fell in Eden, and that mankind are fallen. But this is an obvious fact. Though innocent, children haven’t learned to overcome evil, and must learn that. The evil they must overcome is in themselves. But it is a hopeful prospect. We don’t look upon mankind with disgust, but with hope. The truly dreadful outlook is that of evolution theory – that we came from nothing with no purpose and are mere immoral animals. End note.

 

The idea of original sin is to say that you are bad to start off with, without even doing anything wrong – this is a slap in the face of morality; this is not logical because if man is evil by birth, he has no power or will to change it.

 

Note: But it should be recognized that human nature is such that most people are corrupted by power, so we should not trust a single person with too much power. There are many simple ways we can see that our nature is fallen. This is why free trade is the ideal – we set basic ground rules like honesty, and then we can work well together. Many people cheat and lie, and we have checks on that. Checks on power, a court system, and so forth, because we always have to keep our fallen natures in check. Just because we recognize the need to hold each other accountable doesn’t mean we need a pessimistic outlook on life and humanity. Rand writes entire books, including this one, about how people have a tendency to try and be lazy and steal from others while wearing masks of legality. These are the realities we face. End note.

 

Note: Modern prophets teach that the doctrine of original sin is, on many levels, false. Adam transgressed the law and did fall, but it was part of the plan, part of forward progress. The fall was not sinful. If people become evil, it’s because they choose to be evil. Cain is the time when evil really came into the world, Adam and Eve were righteous, and evil only came into the world when someone deliberately chose it.

 

Note: Babies do not need baptism because they are not evil. Babies are innocent and wonderful, and not yet in the realm of the battle between good and evil. But when we grow, evil grows in the heart, and must be stopped. Babies must begin to learn how to control themselves, but the moral weight of those choices isn’t fully in effect until a later age, like 8, and more fully by a young adult age, like another 8 years, being 16. End note.

 

To hate the human race because of its nature is to hate nature. And to judge someone for something they did before they were born is to negate justice.

 

Note: This is one way that the restoration clarifies the doctrine of the fall. As the second latter-day saint article of faith states, “we believe that man will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam’s transgression.” We have fallen natures, but it’s because we are learning to grow. It’s part of how life was meant to be, part of the test. When it comes to sin/crime and punishment, each person is accountable for their actions, not the actions of their parents. One point to clarify here is that a person’s choices will impact those around him, even if those around him are innocent. In this sense, a family can be ‘punished for four generations’ because of something their parents did. But these things are part of the learning and growing process. Nothing we suffer is in vain, it all contributes to build us into stronger characters. One person can have a great impact on others for good or ill. That’s natural. Religion and God are not about hating people, but about recognizing the natural state we are in, and making the best of it. End note.

 

The code of the socialist who takes things from others and considers people evil, this is a man who apparently believes that both justice and nature are evil.

 

To say that we have original sin is like playing a game with weighted dice; no matter what we choose, the outcomes are going to be determined and this would not be fair. Never delete the importance of our reasoning power; our minds are our ability to create and the vitality of our life in general.

 

Note: We all have weaknesses, but they can be overcome, particularly by the grace of God, and most particularly by the grace of Jesus Christ. People can change. Life is a challenge. Will we make excuses, or take on the challenges and rise above? End note.

 

Reason, morality, creativeness and joy – these were all the things that happened to Adam and Eve when they ate the fruit of the tree, and yet (mainstream) society says that they became evil when they ate the fruit of the tree. What we call the fall of man in the Garden of Eden is where they really learned things of morality, judgment, creation, and these were all good things that enabled them to live life and made them human; someone who doesn’t have these things is not really human, so when they gained the power to know right and wrong and to create and have joy; that’s when they really became fully human, which is a step forward not a step backward.

 

Note: Oh, how the latter-day saints agree with this! The fall of Adam was a step forward, not backward! That’s when they became able to have children and know sorrow so that they could know joy! We call it a fall since they came from God and moved from immortality to mortality, but that step was a necessary part of our training. So when understood in its full context, the doctrine of the fall teaches us about the inherent dignity of mankind, and of their potential for greatness. We must recognize our origins as being from God above, not animal kind below. End note.

 

Many say the body of the human is the evil thing, the bad thing, but it’s the body of the human that is the good thing; it’s how he works; it’s how he has joy; it’s how he exercises judgment and moral reason, both of the mind and the body.

 

Note: Absolutely. The restored church of Jesus Christ teaches that even God himself has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s, and that the human race is destined to retain their bodies forever when the resurrection occurs. Our scripture even says that the sprit separated from the body cannot have a fullness of joy. (D&C 92). Fallen views have creeped into Christianity over the ages, but the gladsome restoration which began in the 1800s brings back many plain and precious truths. End note.

 

Some have split man into half saying the spirit is good and the body is bad. In reality, the whole man is good. You can’t cut him in half. It all works together, you need all of it. Those who claim that God is some incomprehensible thing somewhere are denying reason and are utterly contemptible.

 

Note: Indeed, Satan wants us to not understand God; the God fitting in your heart and being everywhere at once notion is false; God has a body and can be only in one place at a time, though His influence can be felt in many places, and His ability to know all things from information transmitted from all of His creations is a reality. God can be comprehended. Life eternal is to know God and the Christ He sent. Both body and spirit together form the eternal soul, and neither should be treated contemptibly. End note.

 

The mystics claim that we should work for things that we don’t understand, and sacrifice on the altar of some unknown God for some unknown reward in some unknown place; this denies the reason and justice of man. Also, the idea that rewards are only available beyond the grave is another demoralizing idea.

 

Note: True religion isn’t vague and superficial in its promises, nor does it limit its rewards to the hereafter. Living morally is the best way to live now and forever, and brings rewards in both places. True religion has a specific God, specific commandments, and specific blessings promised in return. Knowing the exact location isn’t necessary, but we have even been given details on this point, such as the fact that the destiny of this Earth is to itself become a heaven. That is an idea that Rand could get behind. We must beware the voices of those who overly simplify things to make a culture of skepticism and doubt. These voices may be well meaning, as Rand is, but there is more to the story. More to add to the debate of reason than what the atheists are want to chant. End note.

 

Note: This is also a tactic used by evolutionists – life could not evolve, it’s far too complicated, and the business of evolutionists is to downplay complexity and make a fairytale version of the origins of life, far more unbelievable than the teaching that an intelligent being created us in His image through natural means, and some supernatural means still beyond our comprehension and mastery, for now. End note.

 

Ultimately, sacrifice means trading something of value for something of lesser value, which is not good. However, trading something of temporary pain for future reward is good. But many of the mystics of spirit promise only rewards in the next life. The government people would have us think that we must comply to self-deprivation to help our grandchildren, when it’s really just a government agenda to usurp the people. We must not trade our rights for some government cause or other.

 

Note: Religious teachings don’t just give a good afterlife, they give a good life. The many rewards of capitalism and free trade themselves are from the religious values of honesty thrift diligence and ingenuity. Of course there’s more to religion than this, but there are many examples of a religious life being an upright way to live with benefits for now and later. You could even view it as ‘eternal investments.’ God has joy, and in the best ways. He wants to extend that joy to us. And the sooner we figure things out the sooner we can have it. We don’t have to ‘wait for heaven.’ End note.

 

Note: Sometimes we can’t understand how that works and it takes some faith, but it can be figured out by and by, because the Judeo-Christian God is a God of reason. He is one God, one Creator, not many Gods acting on whims. The Bible actually gave rise to scientific thought – that nature is predictable and operates by uniform laws, not unpredictable as indeed some mystics have promoted. Even Islam is weaker on this than the Bible, as the God of Islam is seen to be so powerful that he just does what he wants, he doesn’t conform to nature or anything else, and is rather unpredictable. The eastern religious certainly have particularly mysterious and unpredictable Gods. It is the God of the Bible that gives us the most predictable and reasonable God. It was Christian Europe that gave us the renaissance and enlightenment, including the science revolution and protestant reformation. For a good treatment of some of these points read The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Bible by Robert J. Hutchinson. End note.

 

If you give milk to your child at your own expense, it’s not a sacrifice; but if you give milk to your neighbor’s child and let your own child starve, then it is a sacrifice, and that’s bad thing. Another example is that if you give money to some person, it is a sacrifice; but if you give money to a friend that is not sacrifice.

 

Note: This is a bit of a word game – both acts of kindness are in a sense sacrifice. But it’s true that our highest obligation in life is to help our families, our loved ones. Rarely are we asked to serve beyond that. The Bible does teach us to love our enemies, but it doesn’t teach us to enable our enemies in their wicked ways. It does say to feed the poor, but also says those who don’t work don’t eat. Ultimately no sacrifice God asks us to make will leave us worse off than we were as God always blesses us. Also, God has already greatly blessed us, and the least we can do is keep His commandments. As King Benjamin teaches, God will always bless you more when you do anything good, and it’s impossible to ever ‘repay’ God for all He does for us, even if we give our life itself. But of course, some tyrannical leaders will manipulate the concept of sacrifice, like communist regimes, asking you to sacrifice for your fellow man in destructive ways that destroy the individual, both body and soul. End note.

 

If you buy food for your hungry child instead of buying a new hat, it’s not a sacrifice because you value your child more than your hat, and so it’s not correct to call that a sacrifice; you’re doing something that has value to yourself. However, if you truly did love the hat more than the child and you were only feeding the child out of duty, you didn’t really want to, that perhaps would be called a sacrifice in this sense of the word, dealing with sacrifice as a negative. Another example is that if someone dies fighting for freedom, that is not a sacrifice because they’re doing it for something that they want to do. They want freedom, they’re not willing to live as a slave. But if someone was willing to live like a slave and they died fighting for freedom, this would be useless and it would be a negative sacrifice, or as the author puts it, a sacrifice in general.

 

If you renounce the material world you are evil.

 

Note: Yes and no. If you want to participate in things of intellect rather than finance, you might view this as renouncing the material world. But in Rand’s definition, things of intellect are part of the material world. So many who call for renouncing the material world aren’t doing so in the way that Rand condemns. The world is indeed a gift to us, as are our bodies and minds. It is indeed a strange notion to let go of all things material. If you sit and meditate and do nothing else, you have probably lost the meaning of life. If you chose to be involved in projects bigger than your personal bank account, you haven’t necessarily renounced the material world, but have found something perhaps more useful to do in the material world. Perhaps you ‘renounce’ the world by using whatever means you are blessed with to increase your joy and the joy of your family and so on, and this is good too. What we want to avoid is heaping endless privileges upon ourselves without thought for our fellows. The most natural way to have a life of joy love and sharing is through the natural affections and bonds of family. And again, in the system of capitalism (voluntary trade), the person serving their own interests does so by serving the interests of the community. Ultimately all God asks of us are the basic things of honesty and such, and the world works really well when people will do that. Other commandments are just an extension of honesty. End note.

 

Those who argue that you must satisfy the wants of others instead of your own ultimately end up saying you must sacrifice your values and morals for someone else’s; usually the end game of these people is to get you to buy into a personal agenda they are pushing.

 

Note: This can be quite different depending on the setting. For example President Eyring speaks of taking care of others’ needs before your own. He spoke about this when talking about a natural disaster, and how some people helped others meet their basic needs before heaping comforts upon themselves. Of course people who engage in this kind of service find out that deep joy comes from it, it is the gift of God, His appreciation showering upon those of His children who help others of His children. End note.

 

Note: Surely one must hold to their convictions, even if they are not popular. We should watch for the motives of our teachers, and make it a matter of serious investigation before giving allegiance to any government, group, religion, etc. End note.

 

Socialists teach a double standard of morality because they say that anything you want is bad, and everything everyone else wants is good, that we should surrender ourselves in a pool of the collective. This means that someone else’s wishes are valid while yours is not; that’s not logical.

 

Note: This is why each person should lift where they stand, and that often involves serving self-interest. End note.

 

Enjoyment is a value, so why teach that it’s okay to help others enjoy, and not okay to help yourself enjoy? The sensation of eating a cake is good – why is it moral for you to help others experience it and not let yourself experience it? It is important to help yourself have joy too.

 

The passkey that gets you into the moral elite among the prevailing philosophy is to constantly cater to others and hold onto no convictions of your own. This boils down and down until you’re not allowed to have any convictions at all, and must appease those of everyone but yourself.

 

Note: Something similar tends to happen in public school classrooms – the teacher must play to the least common denominator, leaving the gifted students no better off. They insist that special needs students be in the main classroom and operate with the same textbook everyone else uses. The home will always be the best place for academic instruction due to the unpredictability and downward trend of the schools. End note.

 

Note: Something similar tends to happen in churches. When you have new members, the temptation is to only cater to them. To keep things really simple. But the best congregations are willing to get bold if they can. They are willing to push a little. They are allowed to be flexible based on local circumstances, not just relying on a centralized curriculum. The home will always be the best place for religious instruction due to the unpredictability and downward trend of the churches. End note.

 

Morality and self-esteem are sacrificed when your only measurement of how to use resources is the needs of others. We don’t just operate based on the needs of others and throw away our own needs and our own values in place of the values of others. Tolerance and acceptance are no longer tolerance and acceptance when they cease to tolerate and accept your views!

 

Some insist that every bite of food we take is guilty because it could have been better used to feed some poor person somewhere, but in reality, it is just for someone who has earned something to enjoy it. It is correct and wholesome.

 

Note: Jesus said the laborer is worthy of his hire/wage. You rob no one if you earned it honestly. End note.

 

Similar to a whore who gives up her body for any man is the person who gives up their morals for the morals of any person, pandering to the least common denominator of those who believe the least. The bar of society’s norms and values are commonly set that way.

 

Love is an expression of one’s values; the greatest thing you can earn from someone is their love.

Love is the emotional price one person pays for the joy they receive from another. But the evil philosophers of our time would insist that we divorce ourselves from our love and give our love to anyone who asks for it. They want us to use love not as a payment for virtues but as a blank check on vices. We are taught by many that love means letting go of all judgment, letting go of all morals, and sending love and 100% forgiveness everywhere without any conditions; such a scenario would eliminate justice, morals, reason, and the value of human life and experience.

 

Note: And to love God is the greatest thing you can give to God. Your trust, your standing with him. End note.

 

Note: While God loves all as His children, he can more highly favor those who keep His commandments, those who align their lives and values with His. End note.

 

Note: This is why we need not only a God who upholds justice, but a Savior who can intervene and offer mercy. God the Father cannot offer mercy; He would cease to uphold justice if He did. But He did train a Son to be virtuous like Himself, who would help us in a constructive, non-weakening way. And we need that help! Father sending this Son to us is how He is merciful, while yet upholding justice. A 3^rd party character is needed so that one can uphold justice, and the other can help intercede for us poor whelps. For more on this, see Elder Christofferson’s 2017 BYU address, ‘A Message at Christmas’. Notes of it are found in my book on salvation, with the title “The Need for A Savior: God’s Plan of Justice vs Lucifer’s Tyranny.” End note.

 

Note: Another view on why Jesus helps us is because it is in His self-interest to do so, inasmuch as it brings Him joy to see us be saved and to see us learn to become like Him and His Father; Jesus Christ is perhaps a bank account willing to give us loans which we will pay back with interest as we become increasingly able to pay it back; we will end up paying Him back greatly by the good works we do which will bring Him so much joy. However, He does continue to bless us, so He is always ahead of us, so He must find joy in forever assisting us, until the day comes where we are like Him in every way, and can then go and, on the level He did and does, help others. This process of creating essentially replicas of Himself must be the most rewarding process in the universe! This is the work of God the Father and the Son Jesus Christ. It will become our work too, and with Them, we will have a fullness of joy. We will, as Elder Dale Renlund put it, “join the family business.” The scripture says that Jesus performed the atonement because of the joy that was set before Him. Everything about the gospel makes sense and aligns with natural values of exchanging services for rewards, even if some of those rewards are not seen without an eye of faith. End note.

 

Heaven can be a place on earth.

 

Note: This earth is patterned after planet Heaven, and will become a Heaven, indeed. And if we live right, we will be blessed with peace and hope for a greater world during mortality, and will inherit that greater world after mortality. Eternal Life is simply an extension of this life. Death is but a door, and life carries on forever. End note.

 

You must build your wishes, not just wish for them. Feelings won’t make that happen. Work will.

 

If you sleep with sluts then you’re not a moral person, no matter how much you feel that you love your wife the next morning; it’s not the feeling that matters, it’s the behavior.

 

The greatest fear of a child is the fear of identity crisis. It’s the villains who say we must get rid of our individual identity. We need to establish goals and identities, concrete realities, concrete roles, positions. But the socialist philosophy is to throw away reality and identity. Socialists say whatever the majority says is right, that we should bend who we are to fit in with the majority.

 

Note: Progressive political power is upheld by creating victim groups and dividing us against each other. They focus on people as part of a group rather than a person as a unique individual. They hyper focus on race, class, gender, and whatever other special interest groups they can come up with. Then tax dollars go to help little groups rather than going toward the ‘general’ (whole) welfare of everyone alike. End note.

 

Children will have an identity crisis if you tell them lies.

 

Note: For example, if someone wants to say they are a boy when they really are a girl, it’s just not true, and it’s immoral even allowing them to say that, tolerating their intolerance for truth. End note.

 

The moral, rational thing to do is to say it exists, so I want it; what tricksters would say is, I want it so, it must exist.

 

Note: The rational being operates on reality. The socialist trickster operates on theoretical ideas. For example – communism might sound great on paper, but in practice, it’s a mass graveyard. The rational thing to do is to work with reality as it is, not to dramatically try and change reality. For example, human nature is consistent. Trying to change human nature is dangerous and fails every time. Build a system that works with human nature, such as the US Constitution’s checks on power. Don’t build a system that only works on fairyland. End note.

 

The idea that God just created the universe out of nothing from a whim is bogus. The laws of science were at play.

 

Note: First, why are we assigning motives to God as being ‘a whim?’ He could have done it because he wanted to, because it would bring Him joy. End note.

 

Note: Second, God didn’t create out of nothing, but out of existing materials! You can’t create matter! Or destroy it! Joseph Smith was ahead of his times when he taught this 200 years ago before it was mainstream science. End note.

 

Note: Third, let me unravel the mystery. God wasn’t the first person in the universe. He had a father and so on. Similarly to how you can’t create matter, you can’t create intelligent beings – they always have existed and always will exist. God’s role in creating us was to bring us to the next phase of our existence rather than creating us out of nothing. Thus the doctrine of creation ex nihilo is unwarranted in light of the restored gospel. End note.

 

The law of causality is determined by action, otherwise you have the non-existent controlling the existent.

 

Corrupt philosophers change around the cause and effect – they want to eat the cake before they bake it; they say it doesn’t matter who bakes it, what matters is that cakes exist and that everyone should be able to share them equally, discounting the need for baking altogether! They do this totally disregarding how that cake came into existence, and the investments of those who worked to bring the cake into existence. Similarly, the cause of our moral philosophies can have an effect on who we choose to mate with, but the corrupt philosophers change it around and say mate with anyone. Over and over, they reverse cause and effect, and they build a fiction. This is why their philosophies on how to help the poor, etc., are so evil – they don’t work!

 

Note: It fascinates me how the Devil doesn’t just give us an alteration of truth, though that may be how he gets us hooked. His end game is to give us a complete inversion of the truth! For example, evolution theory gives us an order of creation diametrically opposite of what is reported in the Bible. The Devil doesn’t stop at discontinuing marriage, he doesn’t stop at sexuality outside of the bonds of marriage, he gives a complete inversion in homosexuality, and forces everyone to celebrate it or be hunted. As the Bible says, truly the friend of the world is the enemy to God! As the Book of Mormon says, the natural man is an enemy to God and will be until he repents! End note.

 

Those who uphold reason are the core of society, others couldn’t even conceive their wishes without them.

 

Socialists want to have the lights but destroy the generators. When you disincentivize business owners by taking away their profits, you “kill the golden goose” instead of allowing it to live and produce more golden eggs.

 

The mystics only think and pray, but we should act.

 

Note: As the old saying goes, pray like it all depended on God, then get up and act like it all depended on you. The old debate of grace vs works is simply resolved in the Book of Mormon: It is by grace that we are saved after all we can do. True religion never discounts the importance of works. End note.

 

People say that there is no such thing as an absolute, but do they not realize that the statement itself is an absolute statement?

 

Note: Similarly, Joseph Smith asked people who claimed that revelation was done now that we have the Bible: Did God reveal to you that revelation is done? Because the bible sure doesn’t say that! Indeed, some point to the passage in Revelation about not adding to or taking from the book, but an almost identical passage appears in the book of Deuteronomy. Clearly these passages refer to not manipulating the specific book they refer to, not the compilation we call The Bible. The Bible does explicitly contain the doctrine of ongoing revelation. Amos 3:7 speaks of God always revealing His will to His prophets before carrying them out. End note.

 

The philosophers of our time are sinking us back to the Dark Ages; the anti-science ages; they are taking away the concept of objective reality and the human consciousness.

 

Note: The ‘Dark Ages’ actually planted the seeds for the renaissance and enlightenment and the American freedom revolution. They gave us the first universities and hospitals (thanks to inspired movements in the Catholic Church). The Bible actually has But indeed, the false philosophies of our time would serve to take us backward away from progress. Apparently real progress is too conservative of an idea for progressives. End note.

 

Note: Many say the prevalence of corrupt philosophies indicate that we have reached the height of civilization, and are about to cycle into another age of stupor. I suppose the present is in many ways a time of great stupor, but alas, the great Millennium will come, and Christ, the Creator of earth, will not deliver us to such great evil. The Lord has been testing us, and those tests are coming to an end. We have proved ourselves for better or worse, and it’s reckoning time. End note.

 

Those who refuse to work really deep down hate themselves. They don’t care so much about being rich as seeing other people be poor.

An inventor is someone who asks the universe why and lets nothing stand between his mind and the answer.

When someone wants to nationalize a product being made, that’s the same thing as wanting to nationalize the brain of the person who made the product; it’s not fair – that brain belongs to the person, not to the society, and similarly his product belongs to him and not to the society; taking away the fruit of his brain is the same thing as taking away his brain.

Socialist thieves like to say, ‘we’re doing this for the people.’ What/who are the people? Does it not include the inventor? The inventor doesn’t get part of any welfare; only the failures get to have it. People who do nothing get all the benefits; the creator just has to watch from the sidelines; he’s no longer considered one of the people. (This type of society is a ticking time bomb.)

Today’s philosophers would have us think that we are bad because we are smart and successful and because we listen to our conscience. They are involved in minimalizing the truth until it’s small enough to be replaced by a convenient lie. This is repeated until it is small enough to be replaced by a quiet lie, then it becomes the new norm, and we are left in a thoughtless stupor, happy to serve the interests of the corrupt government rather than the interests of what is really important to ‘we the people.’

 

Note: We the people slip into comfortable slavery where we are okay with a massive government, minimal freedoms, and no real growth. Just give us bread and circuses. I was once teaching in a lockdown facility and a staff member said, ‘I think you all should have to stay here twice as long.’ The class protested. The staff continued, ‘but, I would make sure you get better snacks!’ What the students did next was shocking. Instead of continuing their protest, their response was, ‘what kind of snacks?’ Oh how easily we are lured into bondage! What cheap things we sell our freedom for! End note.

A right is something that humans need to exist on this earth. For example, if you are to exist on this earth, it is your right to keep what you make. Human rights cannot exist without property rights. If you say that human rights are superior to property rights, that’s just a way of saying that you believe it’s okay to take some people’s property and give it to others. (In other words, that some people’s rights are more important than others.) The law behind property rights is the law of causality: that whoever causes something to be has the right to it. You cannot obtain a product except on the conditions of the owner’s mind.

The only proper function of government is to protect your rights; to act as a police officer (meaning that they can respond with force to anyone who tries to use force against what is rightfully yours). But too often, governments now have officers who just go around forcing you to give more and more of what is yours to them and to your neighbor who didn’t earn it.

 

Note: We hear cases of runaway children where police are called and refuse to intervene when someone else is holding the child, so long as the child wants to be there. What a bazar reversion of justice! We hear cases of juvenile theft where the police refuse to be stern with the criminal because he is under 18. We hear of cases where people who defend themselves from robbers on their property are the ones who go to jail. To learn more about this topic check out Justice Corrupted by Senator Ted Crus. End note.

Government’s only job is to stop people from using force on each other. Those who won’t abide by this simple law always revert to mob rule (which means that people can do whatever they want as long as their mob is bigger than the other mob, something America has always been expressly against).

When gangs of mediocre people juggle around laws against inventors, it makes the inventors not want to invent. The same goes for business, which is the organized invention of goods and services.

Whoever is at the top of the intellectual pyramid contributes the most; it takes him the most mental effort. That is the person who came up with the product (and made arrangements for it to actually come into being).

Those who do not compete in intelligence will compete in brutality.

Don’t play the game where the rules are made by your enemy.

 

Note: Hugh Nibley says the best way to deal with temptation is not to try to resist it, but to try to stay far away from it in the first place. Remember the blessing of the Rabbi in Fiddler on the Roof for the Czar: “God bless and keep the Czar far away from us!” God’s people have always been instructed to flee Babylon and build their own kingdoms when the prevailing ones are corrupt. End note.

Evil socialists fight against truth by saying nothing about it and pretending like it was never said; they also fight against the truth by saying, ‘Yes, let’s allow them to speak but we’re going to keep undecided. It’s not right for us to have an opinion either way. We have to be neutral.’ Then in private they are terrified of the speaker of truth. They tell the public ‘Oh you see, we are tolerant, and we hear all sorts of views’ then they go about silencing the speaker of truth wherever possible. They play down the speaker of truth as if it never happened, even though everyone knows it did.

Note: There is more than one way to kill a prophet. Silencing them is one of those ways. End note.

The world has many people who want jobs of janitors, busboys and other types of unskilled labor, but what it’s looking for is skilled labor – that is hard to find.

The first step toward rebuilding the economy is to abolish all income taxes and fire the government employees.

When you force someone to act in a way contrary to their judgment, you are forcing them to not think.

Those who tell lies don’t really desire to live. Liars are hiding from reality. Words should be a solemn vow of truth, but people live in false worlds. The liar doesn’t really love or care about anything. (They spend their life time building houses of cards.)

The person who says ‘who am I to know’ is really saying ‘who am I to live.’ When you disable the mind you disable life. Life is about using your mind, not about obeying orders. A good employee isn’t just a yes-man. A good employee is a helpful man with good judgment.

What is the answer to rebuilding the economy? It is ‘government: get out of the way.’

The intellectual posterity of a socialist is someone who takes over things without knowing what they are and dubs himself the boss without having any skill or knowledge, claiming that he has a right to do this because he has a gun and an army of thugs to back him up with guns. They seize what others have created simply because they can.

People who want to get around reality, who want to live independent of logic and reason, are people who hate themselves. They hate themselves more than anyone else, and they want to destroy every living thing just to prove that they can exist in a non-reality by nothing else existing to prove them wrong.

 

Note: This is a telling comment about why Satan is determined to destroy us. His ways don’t work, yet he is so stubborn on his non-working ways that he seeks to destroy any who get in his way, any who uphold justice and logic. Satan and the other sons of perdition have chosen that path; they have rejected the full light. As Truman G. Madsen taught, they are locked in a cell, but they have locked themselves in from the inside. End note.

Children have a conviction that knowledge is possible. Adults, when they are idle socialists, lose that conviction, and they spend their lives resorting to orders instead of thinking for themselves because they don’t believe they can find answers and that they must forever look to others for the answers.

The best within us consists of making a living.

 

The honest industrialists worked so hard that they couldn’t feel the pain any more, they just pressed forward, not having time for things like exhaustion or feelings. They felt the joy of hard work, a joy that cannot be felt any other way. Yes, they were worn out, but they wouldn’t have it any other way.

 

Note: Elder Holland spoke of a good missionary as one who collapses into bed at the end of the day, delightfully exhausted. End note.

 

The great banker taught that the thing worse than one who doesn’t regard pity is the one who uses one’s pity against them as a weapon by using their sob story as a reason to give them a loan.

 

Socialists call it an unforgivable sin to be proud of the fact that you made profits. Those who boast of not making profits in their business are the most depraved.

The lovers of truth must live in a private city until the regular cities are wiped clear of all corruption. Then they can return to the regular cities and start building, because you can’t build when there’s that much corruption.

 

Note: That is precisely what the prophets have taught will take place so far as the New Jerusalem is concerned – the place for that city must be wiped clean before we can go there and build a great city of refuge.