09-30-2009
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Subject: To All Innocent Fifth Columnists
In 1941, Ayn Rand wrote an open letter to intellectuals, encouraging
them to organize in support of individualism as the only means of
successfully fighting the collectivist forces of Communism and
Nazism. This piece is fully applicable today, identifying the exact
nature of our current battle for freedom.
From Wikipedia, a
Fifth Column "is a group of people who clandestinely undermine
a larger group, such as a nation, from within, to the aid of an
external enemy." As Rand makes clear at the beginning of the
article, she identified America's Fifth Column as the group of
conservatives who failed to think, judge and then act to preserve the
rights of the individual and the freedom to which they paid lip
service. She was asking the honest among that group to rise to the
challenge facing them, openly oppose totalitarianism, and fight for
their independence and liberty. From the article:
"First and above all: what is Totalitarianism? We all hear
so much about it, but we don't understand it. What is the most
important point, the base, the whole heart of both Communism and
Nazism? It is not the "dictatorship of the proletariat," nor the
nationalization of private property, nor the supremacy of the
"Aryan" race, nor anti-Semitism. These things are secondary
symptoms, surface details, the effects and not the cause. What
is the primary cause, common to both Soviet Russia and Nazi
Germany, and all other dictators, past, present, and future? One
idea — and one only: That the State is superior to the
individual. That the Collective holds all rights and the
individual has none.
Stop here. This is the crucial point. What you think of this
will determine whether you are a mental Fifth Columnist or not.
This is the point which allows no compromise. You must choose
one or the other. There is no middle. Either you believe that
each individual man has value, dignity and certain inalienable
rights which cannot be sacrificed for any cause, for any purpose,
for any collective, for any number of other men whatsoever. Or
else you believe that a number of men — it doesn't matter
what you call it: a collective, a class, a race or a State —
holds all rights, and any individual man can be sacrificed if
some collective good — it doesn't matter what you call it:
better distribution of wealth, racial purity or the Millennium
— demands it. Don't fool yourself. Be honest about this.
Names don't matter. Only the basic principle matters, and there
is no middle choice. Either man has individual, inalienable
rights — or he hasn't.
Your intentions don't count. If you are willing to believe that
men should be deprived of all rights for a good cause — you
are a Totalitarian. Don't forget, Stalin and Hitler sincerely
believe that their causes are good. Stalin thinks that he is
helping the downtrodden, and Hitler thinks that he is serving
his country as a patriot. They are good causes, both of them,
aren't they? Then what creates the horrors of Russia and of
Germany? What is destroying all civilization? Just this one
idea — that to a good cause everything can be sacrificed;
that individual men have no rights which must be respected; that
what one person believes to be good can be put over on the others
by force.
And if you — in the privacy of your own mind — believe
so strongly in some particular good of yours that you would be
willing to deprive men of all rights for the sake of this good,
then you are as guilty of all the horrors of today as Hitler and
Stalin. These horrors are made possible only by men who have
lost all respect for single, individual human beings, who accept
the idea that classes, races, and nations matter, but single
persons do not, that a majority is sacred, but a minority is
dirt, that herds count, but Man is nothing.
Where do you stand on this? There is no middle ground.
Where do you stand? And what will you do in the face
of the same threat facing our country? Do not relegate yourself to
the fifth column. Act in whatever capacity you can. Speak out.
Write articles. Attend local protests. March on Washington.
Donate to campaigns to oust the totalitarians from office. Sign
the John Galt Pledge. Quoting again from Rand's article:
"We do not know how many of us there are left in the world.
But we think there are many more than the Totalitarians suspect.
We are the majority, but we are scattered, unorganized, silenced
and helpless. The Totalitarians are an efficient, organized,
and very noisy minority. They have seized key positions in our
intellectual life and they make it appear as if they are the
voice of America. They can, if left unchecked, highjack America
into dictatorship. Are we going to let them get away with it?
They are not the voice of America. We are. But let us be heard.
To be heard, however, we must be organized. This is not a
paradox. Individualists have always been reluctant to form any
sort of organization. The best, the most independent, the hardest
working, the most productive members of society have always lived
and worked alone. But the incompetent and the unscrupulous have
organized. The world today shows how well they have organized.
And so, we shall attempt what has never been attempted before
— an organization against organization. That is — an
organization to defend us all from the coming compulsory
organization which will swallow all of society; an organization
to defend our rights, including the right not to belong to any
forced organization; an organization, not to impose our ideology
upon anyone, but to prevent anyone from imposing his ideology
upon us by physical or social violence.
Are you with us?
[...]
The world is a beautiful place and worth fighting for. But not
without Freedom."
Marshall your optimism and man the battle stations!
Read the entire article:
To
All Innocent Fifth Columnists
[Thanks to Cloud Downy for bringing this article to my attention.]
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