Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be.
But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.

At the time, the Spanish empire was crumbling and the United States had just purchased its newest territory, Florida.  Adams was arguing that America should not be involved in the wars for independence, and should instead remain a passive example of hope and democracy.  In the almost 200 years that have passed since Adams’s speech to Congress, a lot has changed.

It is true that stomping around the world, looking for monsters can draw unwanted attention, and can even create new monsters.  One could argue that al Qaeda would not have attacked the United States, had we not kept a base in Saudi Arabia.  Osama bin Laden’s 1996 and 1998 fatwas certainly support that view.  But leaving Saudi Arabia alone in the 1990′s would have meant empowering Saddam Hussein, the only leader ever to order the use of nerve gas.

Just as leaving England would have meant allowing Adolf Hitler to grow in power, or leaving Germany would have strengthened the Soviets and leaving Japan would have meant ceding the Pacific to China; allowing despots and dictators to grow to regional powers allows the monster to feed, to fester and to search abroad to satisfy its power lust.  Our strength does not feed tyrants–our weakness does. “None of the four wars in [the twentieth century] came about because we were too strong. It’s weakness that invites adventurous adversaries to make mistaken judgments.”

An environment that allows despots and tyrants free reign over their people or a region may have be tolerable when oceans served as moats, and men flew only in poetry.  Today’s monsters may still live abroad, but their reach has grown.

In 1821, the force required to raze a city would have been carried by ships–plural.

Only two years before Adams made his remarks, the first steamship to cross the Atlantic did so in 18 days.  Today, you can fly from LA to Singapore in 18 hours.  Correspondence that once was done by letters delivered on horseback, by train, by sail or steamboat, over the course of weeks or months, can now be done via satellite video conference in an instant.

Trips that would take a lifetime to plan and a fortune to finance can now be booked casually as a week-long holiday.  There is no place on Earth that cannot be reached from any other within 24 hours.  But the same technology that lets us relax in another hemisphere can also be used to kill thousands without warning on a clear, Tuesday morning.

In 1821, the force required to raze a city would have been carried by ships–plural.  It’s hard even for the federal government to miss an armada, and they don’t even have to grope coeds in the airport.  In 1821, Governments waged wars. Guerilla warfare was in its fledgling stages, and major conflicts were fought between standing armies.

Today, religious fanatics slaughter civilians indiscriminately.  One fanatic can kill hundreds. 19 fanatics can kill thousands.  The power to destroy a city can be carried in a suitcase, or in a plastic bag, wrapped in newspaper.  There are weapons that can wipe out entire cities in a blinding flash, infect millions with horrible disease or set an economy back for decades.   All that is needed is for one guard to miss a clue as the Ryder truck drives past; one TSA agent to be distracted; one metal detector to click when it should beep.

The monster may still walk abroad, but it can slip through our defenses without warning, act quickly, and leave nothing but tattered steel and broken bodies.  Do we trust our lives and our safety to our untrained citizens to see something and say something?  Do we rely on the TSA to succeed 100% of the time? Or do we ask SEAL Team 6, Army Rangers and the 10th Mountain Division to hunt the bastards down where they live?  I know who I trust more to get the job done.

To keep our lives and our liberty, rough men must slip into its cave at night and slit its beastly throat.

The first, and most important function of government is to protect its citizens from harm.  It is the primary purpose of the social contract–we join together to hold off the Hun.  In today’s world, protecting ourselves here, means slaying the monster abroad.  It cannot be allowed to grow, to breed, or to fester.  To keep our lives and our liberty, rough men must slip into its cave at night and slit its beastly throat.

Isolationism, whether out of economic conservatism or a laissez faire diplomacy, is institutional negligence.  If our government is to meet its primary responsibility, it must go abroad in search of monsters to slay.  To do otherwise is to invite the monster here–and it has no reservations about slaying us.

Obama’s “jobs plan” will certainly be another ridiculously partisan and utterly unspecific demonstration of how to use a teleprompter.  But within the cliched rhetoric, Obama will, one would hope, ask for something.  Whatever it is, give it to him.

If Republicans truly believe that Obama’s plans are wrong headed (they are), let Obama have what he asks for: extending employment benefits (again); lowering social security withholding (again–this way most workers won’t even pay that pittance in taxes); more infrastructure spending (maybe this time, shovel-ready won’t be a hack punchline?); increase taxes on the fictional “trillionaires;” drop the “private jet” deduction (in other words, make private jet’s not deductible).

None of these will do a damn thing.  If Obama wants to claim that shooting spit balls at a runaway train will help, give him all the paper he wants.  The Republicans in the House can allow some of their less conservative (or alternatively, safer) members to go along with whatever Nancy and Harry and Obama can dream up.  Don’t fight, don’t cluck and strut, just let Obama have what he asks for and let him own the result.

Obama dallied while he had a pliable Congress and the economy stalled again, burdened by new regulations and uncertainty.  Now that he has had a year and a half of an unfriendly House, let him have his due, and ask the voters to judge him and the rest of Congress on the result.  At a minimum, Obama will cement his legacy as a one term president.  On the up side, there is potential for a Galtian, be-careful-what-you-ask-for moment, where we can finally put to bed the notion that you can create jobs by lynching businessman with the tax code.

The characters in Atlas Shrugged have lived in our collective conscience for half a century now. Breathing life into them now is no less challenging than making a movie about the Bible–people will argue over who played Ezekiel and the color and texture of the milk and honey. But there are some core moments and character traits that have to be observed. This film’s obvious budget issues betrayed some key points, but there were others that wouldn’t have cost a cent to fix.

Francisco D’Anconia
Francisco is written as a playboy–not a washed up one. In my mind, he was always a Latin James Bond–cool, suave and very much a lady’s man and a man’s man at the same time. He is Antonio Banderas as Zorro, but, and this is crucial, at the end of the Zorro film–not the drunken mess that Anthony Hopkins finds at the beginning. In the film, Francisco is played as a washed up lout. He is not clean shaven, his clothes are disheveled and his hair unkempt. The effortless grace of the character is nowhere to be found, and he comes off as a hateful has been–not someone a James Taggart or Orren Boyle would trust with their fortunes.

James Taggart
James is meant to be an empathetic character. He is often found pleading with Dagny to fix things or to not make waves. In the film, he comes across as too self-assured and conniving. He seems to know he is evil and that he is manipulating the system–an attitude the undercuts the written character’s morality.

Lilian Rearden
Played by Rebecca Wisocky, who is the perfect choice, Lilian should have been a lot colder. Her character is a cold, heartless, sexless bitch. In the film, she comes across as too warm and almost understandable. She is supposed to be patronizing and mocking Rearden, as if his efforts, his work, even his libido are all a waste of time. A perfect example of the lack of emotion in the film is the scene where Dagny trades her necklace for Lilian’s Rearden Metal bracelet. There was no passion, there was no indignation–it barely would have caused a scene in real life.

Emotion
That scene should have been packed with emotion as well as exposition. Dagny is trading value for value–a core concept of the book–with a moocher who has no concept of value. It’s also the beginning of Rearden’s affections for Dagny, and her disdain for her lover’s wife. It’s meant to foreshadow the coming affair–it’s not just the bracelet that holds Lilian’s contempt and Dagny’s affection, it’s Rearden himself. If there is meat in Atlas Shrugged for a Hollywood film, it’s in the love triangle between Hank, Lilian and Dagny. As portrayed in the film, Rearden comes off as just another businessman who shags a coworker on a business trip.

The running of the John Galt Line is also a flat note in the film. This is perhaps where the low budget of the film shows most. A fundamental undercurrent in the book is that “public opinion” is being driven from the top down. That is best shown by the throngs of people standing and cheering for Dagny and Hank at each crossing as the John Galt rushes past. And when the union boss tells Dagny that his men won’t run the train, she asks for volunteers and every last one of them steps forward–ratifying her belief in her fellow man. Neither of these two core elements of “public opinion” are seen in the movie.

The film did fall flat in other places as well. When Hank and Dagny consummate their affair–Hank is wracked with guilt, and apologizes to Dagny for his base desire. Dagny laughs at him to carry the point that sex is not immoral or evil, but a beautiful act of two consenting adults. Her brash sexuality is meant to be a stark contrast against Lilian’s cold, manipulative view of sex as an animal desire to be used as leverage by a woman over a man. The film misses this and jumps to breakfast, where Dagny makes a snide comment about Hank being a “married man.”

Throughout the film, the lack of passion in the characters leaves many scenes too flat. There’s too much exposition and not enough umph. You never get the feeling that each vanished capitalist drains Hank and Dagny more and more. There is no sense of being overwhelmed, but carrying on anyway.

There are places, however, where the emotion is spot on. In the final scene, Taylor Schilling as Dagny lets out a blood curdling scream that still rings in my ears. That, overlaid with John Galt’s speech to Wyatt, is the kind of emotion that the film should build to.

On the whole, it was a good movie, but not fully worthy of Ayn Rand’s work.