Given the existence of “flash mob” riots, the continued rise of the massive welfare state (which threatens to push our nation off the economic cliff), and snarling calls to further loot “the rich,” I was enormously saddened to read Ayn Rand’s comment from her 1971 essay, “Don’t Let It Go:”
“Americans admire achievement; they know what it takes. Europeans regard achievement with cynical suspicion and envy. Envy is not a widespread emotion in America (not yet); it is an overwhelmingly dominant emotion in Europe.”