In a perverse way, I’m glad that there are places such as Greece and Illinois. These profligate jurisdictions are useful examples of the dangers of bloated government and reckless statism.

There also are some cities that serve as reverse role models. Detroit is a miserable case study of big government run amok, so I enjoyed a moment or two of guilty pleasure as I read this CNBC story about the ongoing decay of the Motor City. Here are some excerpts.

Detroit neighborhoods with more people and a better chance of survival will receive different levels of city services than more blighted areas under a plan unveiled Wednesday that some residents fear may pit them against each other for scarce resources. …the boundaries of the 139-square-mile city aren’t receding. The plan also backs away from forcing the redistribution of what’s left of the population into areas where people still live and where the houses aren’t on the verge of caving in. …Detroit’s population of about 713,000 is down about 200,000 from 10 years ago, according to U.S. Census figures, and has fallen more than 1 million since 1950. Some areas have fewer occupied homes than vacant ones. …A 2010 survey found Detroit had 33,000 vacant houses and scores of empty, weed-filled and trash-cluttered lots.

How predictable, I thought. This is what happens when vote-hungry politicians adopt policies that reward people for riding in the wagon and punish the folks who are pulling the wagon.

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In June we attended the Printer’s Row Literature Festival in Chicago. City blocks were closed off for tents and booths full of all types of literature. We presented a board with a selection of well known book covers and asked visitors of the event if they could choose to ban any of the books on the board, which if any, they would in fact ban. They were allowed to choose any three of the eleven choices.

The authors of the books we offered to ban were Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Ann Coulter, Andrew Breitbart, Ayn Rand, Michael Savage, Bill Clinton, Michael Moore, Karl Marx, Adolf Hitler and Barack Obama. While there were in fact less than two handfuls of individuals who did tell us they don’t think any books should be banned, unfortunately there were a shocking amount of guests at this book fair who were quite open to the idea, and in fact lined up quite excited for the opportunity to voice their opinion.

Participants overwhelming chose Sarah Palin who received 53 votes putting her at 36% overall, Glenn Beck at 23% and Ann Coulter at 22%.

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The U.S. economy is crumbling. Businesses are collapsing in record numbers. Jobs have disappeared. Tax revenues are down dramatically. Coincidence?

Everything happening today under Obama resembles the storyline of Ayn Rand’s famous book, Atlas Shrugged, one of the most popular books of all time, selling over 7 million copies. Now, under President Obama, Atlas Shrugged has come to life. Rand prophesized a country dominated by socialists, Marxists and statists, where looters, free loaders and poverty promoters live off the productive class. To rationalize the fleecing of innovative business owners and job creators, the looter class demonized the wealthy, just as Obama and his socialist cabal are doing in real life today.

The central plot of Atlas Shrugged is that in response to being demonized, over-taxed, over-regulated, and punished for success, America’s business owners were disappearing — dropping off the grid, and refusing to work 16-hour days to support those unwilling to put in the same blood, sweat and tears. They were going on strike. Because of that the original proposed title of “Atlas Shrugged” was “The Strike.”

They were going on strike to teach that civilization cannot survive when people are slaves to government. That without a productive class of innovative business owners willing to risk their own money and work 16-hour days, weekends and holidays, there are no jobs and no taxes to pay for government. If you punish the wealthy, the risk-takers, the innovators, you kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. In Obama’s America, fiction is becoming fact.

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Released April 15, 2011, Atlas Shrugged Part I has been predictably panned by reviewers and wildly embraced by audiences.

At the movie-review site Rotten Tomatoes, just 8 percent of critics give a thumbs up, compared to 85 percent of moviegoers. Such a sharply split reaction mirrors the reception of Ayn Rand’s original and controversial novel too. Appearing in 300 theaters, the movie’s weekend take on a per-screen basis was a strong $5,640, good enough for third overall behind major-studio releases Rio and Scream 4.

How do the folks behind Atlas Shrugged Part I feel about it all?

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Whether you agree with Ayn Rand’s philosophy or not, her novel Atlas Shrugged has touched the lives of millions and influenced many of today’s center-right thinkers. The Wall Street Journal noted this morning:

Book sales for “Atlas” have always been brisk—and all the more so in the past few years, as actual events have mirrored Rand’s nightmare vision of economic collapse amid massive government expansion.

Rand’s belief in the primacy of the individual over the collective has garnered her vilification from some on the Right and many, especially, on the Left.

Yet, there is no denying that Atlas Shrugged’s portrayal on the devolution of society at the hands of the Left was prescient as it was one of the most cogent attacks on the excesses of liberalism. Today, it seems as though the lines of fiction and reality have blurred in our nation.

Tomorrow, the film Atlas Shrugged, Part One opens nationwide, which is a faithful adaptation of Part One of her 1957 novel.

Today, we offer you, Atlas is Shrugging, a new short film by Ben Howe.

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“Who is John Galt?”

On the week Atlas Shrugged Part 1 hits the theaters, Reason.tv goes behind the scenes to speak with the people both on and off the silver screen to explore the mysterious question that haunts the world of Ayn Rand’s epic, Atlas Shrugged.

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Last week, while passing through Sin City (aka Washington, DC), I had the opportunity to attend a screening of Atlas Shrugged, Part One at the Heritage Foundation.

As one whose life took a remarkable turn nearly two decades ago, in part due to Atlas Shrugged, waiting for a movie version of Ayn Rand’s novel to hit the big screen has been an effort at exercising endless patience. However, that patience has paid off with this movie.

Despite the novel being published in 1957, in an era of looters seeking to devour producers—from the White House in Washington to the streets of L.A.—Atlas Shrugged is a movie that speaks to the issues of today. And, just as importantly, it is a faithful adaptation of the novel that Americans surveyed describe as the second most influential novel in their lives (after the Bible).

Following the screening, and in light of all that is going on in Madison and elsewhere, Harmon Kaslow (one of the producers) stated that he would release one of the scenes in which the heroine, Dagny Taggart, confronts the union boss.

Below, courtesy of “The Strike” Productions, Inc., is a first-look at the scene Dagny confronts the union*.

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On March 23rd we went to the Atlas Shrugged movie premiere at the Heritage Foundation in Washington DC. Afterward we were able to catch up with producer Harmon Kaslow and several people who attended the premiere. Here is what they had to say about the movie.

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Reason.tv presents exclusive, behind-the-scenes footage of the movie adaption of part I of Ayn Rand’s epic and hugely influential novel, Atlas Shrugged, which tells the story of a United States crumbling under the weight of government intervention and the “men of the mind” who fight against their collectivist exploiters.

This sneak peek offers a glimpse into the post-production process as well as portions of a never-before-viewed scene from the movie.

***SPOILER ALERT*** This video contains portions of a scene and actors discussing the actions of their characters.

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Just prior to the introduction of Rep. Paul Ryan’s response to the State of the Union Address,  a cohort of mine tweeted, “But first, Paul Ryan’s rebuttal, which will be like Ayn Rand hosting Picture Pages.”  I couldn’t help but laugh at this thought which for the most part ended up being spot on, though I don’t necessarily think Jon Galt’s Picture Pages would be such a terrible idea.  As many of us know, Rand speaks a great deal of truth in her works, and a portion of it has seemed almost prophetical over the last several years.  Spoon feeding progressives Rand sounds like a great solution since they are having such a difficult time understanding the big boy versions.

That being said, Ryan’s speech was for the most part what I wanted – and expected – to hear with the exception of one key failure.  Towards the end of the speech Ryan remarked that,

“We believe government’s role is both vital and limited – to defend the nation from attack and provide for the common defense … to secure our borders… to protect innocent life… to uphold our laws and Constitutional rights … to ensure domestic tranquility and equal opportunity … and to help provide a safety net for those who cannot provide for themselves.”

I grabbed my pocket copy of the Constitution and thumbed through it desperately looking for the section in which the U.S. Republic is given the authority to provide public safety nets.  It simply wasn’t there.

The Congressman spent a great deal of time speaking on limited government, free enterprise, founding principles, and individual responsibility. In fact, toward the end of the speech he contradicted his earlier statement about safety nets by remarking that the “American system of limited government” had “done more to help the poor than any other economic system ever designed.”

The fact that the initial statement was made, and then additionally contradicted is concerning.  It impresses upon me the notion that our representation still does not get it. It is still…not yours to give.

I invite Congressman Ryan along with anyone else serving our country in any area of leadership or bureaucracy to read through the story of Colonel Davy Crocket in Not Yours to Give.  Feel free to argue the validity of the occurrence, but the principle within remains which I present in part:

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“We need a libertarian Che Guevara,” says libertarian activist Starchild, who makes a living as an erotic services provider.

Reason.tv’s Tim Cavanaugh sat down with Starchild, who recently ran forSan Francisco School Board as the Libertarian candidate, at the Libertopia 2010 conference in Hollywood. Their discussion covers topics such as the history of the libertarian movement, why San Francisco actually is a very libertarian city despite being named Reason.tv’s Nanny of the Year, why libertarians need to look to groups such as the Black Panthers as models for political activism, and how Starchild managed to convert Tim Cavanaugh to libertarianism.

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Anne C. Heller’s critically acclaimed and best-selling 2009 book, Ayn Rand and the World She Made, is new in paperback (we’re tempted to say that it makes a great Christmas gift, though it’s clear that Rand didn’t believe in the holiday or the altruism that attaches to it!).

Reason’s Nick Gillespie talks with Heller about Rand, whom the biographer says remains the great explicator of capitalism’s virtues and remarkably undervalued by the literary establishment.

“How many novelists of ideas do we have in post-war America?” asks Heller, who says the most surprising thing she learned about Rand during her research was her fearfulness. From double-locking doors to wearing heavy rubber gloves while washing dishes to avoid germs, Heller argues that Rand bore the scars of a Jewish childhood spent in the virulently anti-Semitic confines of czarist Russia and the fledgling Soviet Union.

As Gillespie noted in his review of Ayn Rand and the World She Made and Jennifer Burns’ Goddess of the Market, Heller’s biography is a rich, sympathetic treatment of a major cultural figure that simultaneously analyzes and humanizes Rand’s major, continuing influence on 20th- and 21st-century America.

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Scott Powell, in today’s Investors Business Daily:

‘Atlas Shrugged” — Ayn Rand’s fourth and last novel, published in 1957 — may be second to the Bible as the most influential book read in America, according to a Library of Congress survey. It is required reading in management training at BB&T, the 12th-largest bank in the U.S. and one that resisted taking TARP bailout funds.

Since the Obama administration took office, “Atlas Shrugged” has been enjoying a renaissance with rising sales and library waiting lists, partly because it explains our current economic woes more straightforwardly than most of what we hear from today’s experts.

What happened in Rand’s narrative is coming to pass today, with an anti-business administration reviling private industry and capitalizing on crisis to expand and redirect investment within and between sectors of the economy — setting quotas, prices and compensation.

Businesses responded by retrenching — ceasing to invest, innovate and expand. Whole industries contracted, closed down or moved offshore, much like the U.S. gas and oil drilling industry is doing today. Then, just as now, management became frustrated, discouraged and reluctant to create jobs in an environment of excessive government meddling.

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I’ve never met Glenn Beck, but after watching him for the past year and a half, I feel I know him to some extent, at least in that modern concept of knowing people, at a distance via technology.

I sincerely appreciate what he has been doing on his television program, particularly his emphasis on history. Specifically, I have loved the following:

1. The exposé of progressivism, showing how that philosophy has permeated our politics and government.
2. The excellent choice of guests ranging from Amity Shlaes to Jonah Goldberg to Larry Schweikart.
3. The Founders Friday series in which he reintroduces (or introduces, as the case may be) the thinking of the Founders to a national audience.
4. His desire to lead Americans back to faith in God and all the values that flow from that faith.
5. His sense of how to combine substance with entertainment, thereby making the substance far more interesting to those who watch.

Oh, I’ve had some quibbles with him along the way. First, I’m not overly fond of Thomas Paine. Yes, his Common Sense was instrumental in leading toward independence, but his later Age of Reason, which trashed Christianity, met with overwhelming rejection by the American people—justly so, in my view.

I’ve also wished at times that his critique of Republicans didn’t make all Republicans seem like sellouts. Not all are (and I’m sure he realizes this).

My third quibble has been his reliance on proponents of Ayn Rand’s philosophy as a basis for championing the free market and capitalism.

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The 13th Annual Energy & Environment Conference, held in Phoenix Feb. 1-3, isn’t the sort of place where global warming “deniers” are exactly welcome. In fact, by my observations, the skeptical caucus at the event consisted entirely of: James M. Taylor, a senior fellow for environment policy at The Heartland Institute; Keith Lockitch, a fellow of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights; and me. All the other attendees spent their time discussing how the U.S. government — or, even better, a “global government” — needs to compel us all to live “greener” lives through schemes like cap-and-trade. Environmentalists are a bossy and power-hungry lot.

Lockitch gave a presentation arguing free-market economies are better positioned than socialist societies to deal with any severe weather events caused by climate change — and was called a “denier” and compared to a shill for “Big Tobacco” for his trouble. Taylor got off a little easier, receiving only scoffs and curious-to-annoyed glances for asking inconvenient questions.

But that’s not to say we were the only people to question the assumptions of the attendees who believe the “science is settled” on global warming. Perhaps the greatest challenge came from one of their own — renowned climate scientist William Sprigg — who urged his colleagues to stop treating the ClimateGate scandal as irrelevant noise promoted by “deniers.” In an amazingly telling moment, green energy consultant Andy Van Horn, who introduced Sprigg, admitted he’d never heard of ClimateGate until Sprigg suggested it a few weeks ago as a topic worthy of discussion. (Who are the real “deniers” again?)

Sprigg, adjunct research professor in the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the University of Arizona, believes the planet is on a potentially dangerous warming path and atmospheric carbon dioxide is to blame. He also led the technical review of the first global warming report issued by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1990. Clealry, Sprigg is no “outlier” or “rebel,” but one of the most respected and “mainstream” scientists in the field of climatology. So it came to a bit of shock to the audience when Sprigg expressed concerns about how contrarian scientists are treated with contempt by many of his colleagues.

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Recent headlines seem lifted directly out of an Ayn Rand novel. President Obama decries the “fat cat bankers on Wall Street”. Harry Reid attacks insurance companies for making too much profit. House Democrat leaders call Tea Partiers “Racist, Nazi, Gun Nuts”.  How about this nauseating statement made by Army General George Casey after the Muslim terrorist attack on Ft. Hood?

As great a tragedy as this was, it would be a shame if our diversity became a casualty as well

Each of these headlines might well have been uttered by an Ayn Rand character. Rand, whose father’s pharmacy was confiscated by the Soviets during the communist revolution of 1917, and who came to America in 1926, seems uniquely able to speak to us about the inverted morality of our times. Virtue is to be apologized for. Depravity commands respect. Success is cast as evil and punished while failure is blamed on others and rewarded. Rand’s insights into the psychological state of collectivists—those who demand that we sacrifice our individual freedom and happiness for the sake of the state—explain what often seems incomprehensible to thinking people.

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Our President blames the Bush Administration. Many on Wall Street are now blaming Obama. Democrats blame Republicans. Republicans blame Democrats.  Who really is at fault for our economic troubles?

The answer is rather simple.

Government and those that proclaim it can solve so many of our problems – regardless of their party.

In 1959, in an interview with Mike Wallace, Ayn Rand posited that:

“A free economy will not break down. All depressions are caused by government interference and the cure that is always offered . . . is more of the same poisons that caused the disasters.”

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With the publication of The Fountainhead in 1943 and Atlas Shrugged in 1958, Rand became a full-blown cultural phenomenon, selling millions of books and inspiring countless readers-ranging from former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan to Playboy founder Hugh Hefner to actress Angelina Jolie-with her moral defense of capitalism.

A refugee from Soviet Russia, Rand argued that capitalism was the best way of organizing society not simply because it was more efficient than communism but because it allowed the individual to fill his or her potential. A self-declared “radical for capitalism,” Rand emphatically rejected collectivism of all stripes and embraced “man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.”

Decades after her death, Rand’s work is hotter than ever.

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A year or two ago, only the most radical leftists would have dreamed that we’d be living in a country where the government owns a majority share in GM, bailed out private insurers, took over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and handed over billions of dollars to the financial sector.

It continues to bailout homeowners doing more of the same policies that put us in this mess in the first place. The government now plans to bailout seniors and small businesses and it won’t be long before Obama proposes to bailout children. Also,  as the debate over health care reform continues, we are left to wonder: how much is this going to cost us? One trillion dollars or two?

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