On Money

There are so many beautiful blogs I love to read. The authors are such an inspiration to me. They're incredible cooks, skilled photographers, lovely hosts, loving mothers, and, in general, kick-ass women. All the awesome notwithstanding though, I have not found a single blog that I can align my life philosophy with. (This is probably due to most objectivists being weird birds with poor taste. Or, you know, they might just have better things to do than write a blog about making pistachio ice cream or the best red lipstick.)

Now, I don't want to talk shit about liberals because a) my views align with liberal views more than they align with conservative; b) a lot of them are cool cats. My best lady-friend is a filthy liberal to the core, god bless her. (I actually wrote a limerick about our unlikely friendship. I'll share it with you one day.) In between reading about awkward dates and Scandinavian parenting practices, I hardly even notice the underlying shame of money and the penchant for self-sacrifice in my favorite blogs. It's things like this post and this article (linked to by rmtl) that put our differences in sharp focus. Take this quote (from the aforementioned article) as an example:

"Concord had been discovered again, but the new settlers were less guilty about their money because they had made it, not inherited it. The new money bred arrogance, while the old money bred eager-to-please guilt—that great, undervalued neurosis."

I don't have much to say in response to this way of thinking about money that Rand hasn't said herself. So I'll leave you with an excerpt from one of my favorite speeches in Atlas Shrugged.

"So you think that money is the root of all evil?” said Francisco d’Anconia. “Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can’t exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them."
[...]
"If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose–because it contains all the others–the fact that they were the people who created the phrase ‘to make money.’ No other language or nation had ever used these words before; men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity–to be seized, begged, inherited, shared, looted or obtained as a favor. Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created. The words ‘to make money’ hold the essence of human morality."

Do your favorite blog authors have similar political views as you? Is it even important?

PS. LOVE ya, JZ!