Rosenkreutz

I first read Ayn Rand's two most famous novels when I was in my late teens, and even then felt her message was ideological and that I didn't like it. Complete liberty in any area means the ability to misuse that liberty. To have a stable society, some liberties have to be regulated. The question, at any time, is which ones, and how much? When it comes to liberty in financial affairs, I have no objection to people being wealthier than I am, but I am concerned about how they got that way. If they produced a product many people needed or wanted, their making a fair profit is justifiable. If they got that way through some kind of fraud, it's not, and a lot of the wealthy have gotten their wealth dishonestly. That doesn't just affect them personally, it can affect the whole society, as it's doing right now. There's nothing wrong with making as much money as you can honestly, but dishonestly is something different. Maybe Tea Partiers are not in favor of dishonest wealth, but if they're in favor of lower taxes for the rich people, who benefited from the system we live in, than for poor people, then I think they're trying to reward dishonesty.