Hank sees the light

Atlas Shrugged – Day 048 – pp. 469-478

That bit was sooooo good, I think we need a little follow up and clarification from Hank. . .

“I’ve tried never to remind you that you’re living on my charity. I thought that it was your place to remember it. I thought that any human being who accepts the help of another, knows that good will is the giver’s only motive and that good will is the payment he owes in return.”

Gettin’ that Phil?

I like this even better. . .

“. . .let’s get it straight: you’re an object of charity who’s exhausted his credit long ago.”

Phillip’s reality check just bounced.

Oh, Phil carries on a bit saying he doesn’t need Hank, that he never meant to insult Hank, that blah blah blah. And Hank just cuts him off at every pass.

I don’t think I’m a particularly bad person myself, but I’m getting a nice warm fuzzy feeling watching Hank shoot his sniveling brother down.

And there’s more. . .

He noted, in weary contempt, that the three at the table remained silent. Through all the years past, his consideration for them had brought him nothing but their maliciously righteous reproaches.

Can’t pick your family, Hank.

Where was their righteousness now?

What was keeping them from attacking him again? Over what, undoubtedly, was a most deliberate and pointed attack?

“The sanction of the victim.”

Now if he can just apply that lesson to Rearden Metal.

He gets up to leave, and Lillian jumps in…

“Where are your going?”

Bang my girlfriend. . . (nah, he didn’t really say that.) But. . .

He stood looking at her for a deliberate moment, as if to confirm the meaning she would read in his answer: “To New York.”

(Almost as good.)

“You can’t go to New York tonight. . . Why do you wish to go to New York tonight. . . I forbid you to leave us tonight.”

Bwaaaaaa  Haaaaaa!!!

He turned and left the room.

Two for two! Phil and Lillian. Not a bad night for Hank.

Driving to the big city, Hank thinks back to recent encounters with the Wet Nurse. He recalled that he could have easily turned Hank in, knowing exactly what was going on at the plant. But he chose not to. Seems the WN is coming around as well.

He recalls the occurrence of one more in a long line of rail disasters. Taggart Trans rails are falling apart. Dagny is trying her best to patch things up with old rails from different locations. It’s a losing battle.

She had spent months fighting the men of Jim’s Board of Directors, who said that the national emergency was only temporary and a track that had lasted for ten years could well last for anther winter, until spring, when conditions would improve, as Mr. Wesley Mouch had promised.

Now that’s worth commenting on. We’re living in the exact same situation today. Political promises of economic rebounds when it’s the very actions of those in power that is causing the decline.

And a board of directors willing to swallow it at face value. Without a single critical thought. That’s the real reason they were, and we are, in such a state. No one is willing to apply a little common sense thinking about the crap coming out of Washington.

When he gets to NY, Dagny’s apartment is dark. He calls her at the office and goes to meet her there.

When he arrives, he tells her he’s going to up her order of Rearden Metal by 30% for the same amount of money in clear violation of the law. They’ll keep it secret from anyone who doesn’t need to know. They’ll muddle the books to keep it under wraps from everyone else. But why?

“I am doing it in order to be able to bear my work, or else I’ll break like Ken Danagger.”

(I guess  if you’re in for a dime. . .)

And now it’s trial day!

Court room is packed with onlookers. Gawkers who have come to see him in the flesh.

The crowd knew from the newspapers that he represented the evil of ruthless wealth. . .

Jeez, how many modern day parallels can there be? Told what to think by the media.

But Rand takes a slight turn here. Apparently, what would ordinarily have been a ravenous crowd chanting for Rearden’s head, they now look at him in a slightly different light.

They looked at him not with admiration – admiration was a feeling they had lost the capacity to experience, long ago. They looked with curiosity and with a dim sense of defiance against those who had told them that it was their duty to hate him.

That’s a change. Apparently they’ve noticed things aren’t getting a whole lot better under the stewardship of the leaders of state.

They sat in the courtroom in heavy silence and they looked at the tall, gray figure, not with hope — they were losing the capacity to hope — but with an impassive neutrality spiked by a faint question mark: . . . placed over all the pious slogans they had heard for years.

Necessary task: Keep hope alive.

The crowd remembered that these same newspapers,less that two years ago, had screamed that the production of Rearden Metal should be forbidden, because its producer was endangering people’s lives for the sake of his own greed. . .

Maybe there’s hope after all.

The judge asks Hank for a plea.

“I have no defense.”

“Do you– ” The judge stumbled; he had not expected it to be that easy. “Do you throw yourself upon the mercy of this court?”

“I do not recognize this court’s right to try me.”

Whoa! And Hank’s all up in their collective face.

“But Mr, Rearden, this is the legally appointed court to to this particular category of crime.”

“I do not recognize my action as a crime.”

“But you have admitted that you have broken our regulations controlling the sale of your Metal.”

“I do not recognize your right to control the sale of my Metal.”

“Is it necessary for me to point out that your recognition was not required?”

“No, I am fully aware of it and I am acting accordingly.”

If it was only this easy in real life. If only we could put the pols on the spot and expose their hypocrisy to the harsh light of truth. (I wonder if Dagny or Lillian will get the conjugal visitation rights?)

“Do you mean that you are refusing to obey the law?”

“No. I am complying with the law — to the letter. Your law holds that my life, my work and my property may be disposed of without my consent. Very well, you may now dispose of me without my participation in the matter. I will not play the part of defending myself, where no defense is possible, and I will not simulate the illusion of dealing with a tribunal of justice.”

No sanction of the victim.

If, as they claim, the public demands that Rearden’s profits be controlled for the greater good, they had the direct power to do it all along – by not buying his product. Any other method of controlling him is the method of looters. (I’m starting to like that word.)

“Do you realize the consequences of your stand?”

“Fully.”

“It is the opinion of this court that the facts presented by the prosecution seem to warrant no leniency. the penalty which this court has the power to impose on you is extremely severe.”

“Go ahead.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Impose it.”