United Liberty

Matt Yglesias posted this yesterday in reference to a clip from the new Atlas Shrugged film, due out April 15.  The clip involves a union official telling Dagny Taggart that he wouldn’t allow her to run that train.  If you’ve read the book, you know that Taggart doesn’t really respond well to people telling her what she can and cannot do.  The clip has been made private on YouTube, but Yglesias posted the following:

Why does the sexy capitalist want to build a socialistic train? If only Ayn Rand had listened to George Will.

The post Yglesias links to is one where Will blasts high speed rail as a socialist enterprise. However, it’s still a big fat FAIL for Yglesias. You see, the “sexy capitalist” paid for the railroad out of her own money. No socialism at all. Taggart, in fact, has to battle all manner of government intervention just to get the line built. There was no government funding, no grants or subsidies. The truth was that she built that line in spite of the government, not because of it.

Honestly Matt, I expect better from you.  Maybe you should have read the Wikipedia entry for the book before making your pathetic attempt at pointing out irony or hypocrisy or whatever you were trying to point out.  The fact of the matter, other than trains themselves, the fictional John Galt line and high speed rail have nothing in common.

Please try again.