Pirate bookkeepers and out-of-town legislators

Atlas Shrugged – Day 052 – pp. 579-588

I’m going to try something a little different starting this evening. Rather than narrate the story like I’ve been doing, I’m going to try to recap a little less and think out loud a little more. A little more color, and a little less play-by-play. I’ll still include quotations from the book that I find particularly arresting, but not too much retyping. (I was starting to feel like I was just rewriting the damn thing!) So let’s see how it goes shall we?

Where were we? Oh yeah. Hank was confronting the Dread pirate Danneskjold (. . .Nah, “Dread Pirate Roberts” from the Princess Bride’s better too. Who names a pirate Ragnar?)

Anyway, Hank and Ragnar. Ragnar is explaining his accounting system to Hank. That he has a rather large account in his name. He has no way of knowing all of what’s been looted from Hank, with the exception of one account where meticulous records are kept.

His taxes. Ragnar intends to given Hank back his taxes for the last 12 years. (Where’s Ragnar when you need him?)

“Are you thinking that death and taxes are out only certainty, Mr, Rearden? Well there’s nothing I can do about the first, but if I lift the burden of the second, men might learn . . . to hold not death and taxes but life and production as their two absolutes. . .”

So Ragnar says he has friends in high places, who give him high level information — like Hank’s tax returns. When he pillages a ship, he takes the loot and divvies it up according to who’s on his books and how much they’re paying.

It’s all safely tucked away in the Mulligan Bank. (Remember that name?)

And there’s one other thing. No one will be making any Rearden Metal except Hank as long as Ragnar has anything to say about it. He’ll kick ass and take names if anyone tries.

“If men like Boyle think that force is all they need to rob their betters — let them see what happens when one of their betters chooses to resort to force.”

Hank is both drawn to and repulsed by. I think he’s behind the movement in principle, but he still has his damned moral code hanging over his head.  What makes a man cling so to his moral code?  (I guess at some point, we’re going to have to figure out the morality behind Rand’s industrialists abandoning the world.)

“I’ll tell you I have no hope left, but I have the knowledge that when the end comes, I will have lived by my own standards. . .”

So while Hank remains vehemently against what Danneskjold is doing, his actions are about to betray him.

As they’re talking, they are approached by a car. It’s the cops.

Ragnar, America’s most wanted, responds by doing . . . nothing. Clearly he’s been in this position before. Hank answers the police questions. Nope, he hasn’t seen anyone fitting that description. Oh really, you believe it to be the Dread Pirate Danneskjold? Nope, haven’t seen him. This? Oh, this is my bodyguard.

Ha! Hank covers for him. And as he does, he realizes something else,

“Rearden realized that he had stood facing the policemen with his hand clutching the gun in his pocket and that he had been prepared to use it.”

An interesting twist. It’s the police now who are to be feared. What makes us think that Hank would draw his weapon on the police, while at the same time damning Danneskjold’s activities.  Hank’s on board the movement, I think. He just won’t commit out loud. Damned moral code.

Cut to Kip Chalmers spilling his drink on a train. Where’ve we heard that name before?

I think he was one of the looters that was climbing the ladder and threatening those who were already at the top. Maybe it was Jim’s wedding? Maybe a board meeting? Not sure.

Anyway, Kip is running for office. . .

“Kip Chalmers had decided to enter popular politics and to run for election as Legislator from California, though he knew nothing about that state. . .”

Now where have we heard that before?  Does Senator Clinton ring a bell!? (Born and raised in Illinois.  Adult life spent in Arkansas and Washington. Elected Senator from New York. WTF! Life imitatin’ art again.)

Anyway, he’s running on a platform of nationalizing the railroads. He’s with Lester Tuck, his campaign manager, Laura Bradford, his mistress, and a Mr Gilbert Keith-Worthing, a British novelist who’s there for who knows why. They’re on a train he somehow procured at the expense of the taxpayers to go and campaign in Cali the next day.

Train’s running late.

“God damn these railroad people!. . . They’re doing it on purpose. They want to ruin my campaign.”

He dives down form more excuses. This time comes up dripping with irony.

“I expect transportation, not alibis. They can’t treat me like one of their day coach passengers. I expect them to get me where I want to go when I want it.”

Apparently they need to hurry. The rally is the next day.

And when he gets there, Kip is gonna set things aright.

“The day of the industrialists is over. The day of –“

When suddenly they are all thrown violently to the ground as if the train car stopped but their own motions didn’t.

Big problems on the rail. . . I don’t think Kip is gonna make it.