Edward Hudgins

October 11, 2007 -- Two important events occurred in October 1957. First, the Soviet Union launched into orbit the first artificial satellite, named Sputnik, causing many to speculate that the West was losing to the superior technology and, possibly, inevitable ideology of communism. Second, the novel Atlas Shrugged was published. Its author, Ayn Rand, had fled the tyranny of Soviet communism in 1926 for freedom in the West.

Editor's Note: John Aglialoro, a trustee of The Atlas Society, has worked for nearly two decades to produce a movie of Ayn Rand’s magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged. Now he has reached his goal. The film is scheduled for release April 15, 2011. 

Visit the Official Atlas Shrugged Movie Web Site!

March 2003 -- In her 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand imagined a monstrous world in which the laws and the political regime, rather than protecting productive individuals, actually make it easy and legal for the rapacious and the envious to steal from them. Not surprisingly, many producers drop out of this society. In response, politicians warn the remaining producers not to leave their jobs, claiming that it is their duty to serve society.

This nightmare scenario is now breaking out across the United States. The victims are physicians.

March 2003 -- In her 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand imagined a monstrous world in which the laws and the political regime, rather than protecting productive individuals, actually make it easy and legal for the rapacious and the envious to steal from them. Not surprisingly, many producers drop out of this society. In response, politicians warn the remaining producers not to leave their jobs, claiming that it is their duty to serve society.
 

August 6, 2004 -- When governments take too much money from productive individuals, not surprisingly individuals try to escape from their plunderers. To avoid high taxes and heavy-handed regulations, they might flee from cities to the suburbs, from one state to another—see all those business folks who left California for Arizona and Nevada—and from one country to another. In order to cut off the retreat of potential victims, the United Nations is pushing new proposals for global taxation.

On January 1, Venezuela entered into its second month of a national work stoppage. Close to 90 percent of the working population refuses to participate as producers in an economy that supports the regime of Lieutenant Colonel Hugo Chávez.

June 2003 -- On April 15 the news is always full of stories about taxpayers standing in long lines at post offices to file their returns on time. Occasionally, they are accompanied by sidebar stories about some proposed tax cut or reform that might help the economy—stories that usually disappear by the next day's news cycle.

Perhaps tax stories would remain in the headlines—and tax policy on the front burner—if reporters realized that those stories involve moral questions and not merely economic issues.

April 14, 2004 -- Americans celebrate July 4 with pride as the day we gained our independence. However, we should lament April 15—tax day—as the day that too many of us all too willingly surrender our liberty and opportunities in life.