Drive for wealth creation produces great benefits

Sorry Ben Dalton, but your attempt in the letter to the editor to repudiate any of Ayn Rand's "propaganda" with meaningless and unproven mysticism is futile. God is just about as sacred to me as the Loch Ness Monster. There is nothing more important to me than my rights, and nothing more sacred to me than the protection of that which I have worked to gain and keep (my wealth). If I spend a few hours in the library researching the stock market you so sarcastically praise, and earn more than you do in an entire month...am I not a smarter man than you?

So please, force yourself into hours of ruthless labor even though you have the tool for unlimited happiness sitting right on top of your neck. Do not use whatever moral means you may have to improve your life. If you are born into affluence...throw it away as you said. Make all the poor people in this country think that it is not actually money that they should want, but continued poverty! Why? Because there is nothing more sacred than, oh yes, God and self-sacrifice. That's right, individual life is at the bottom of the barrel, trumped by a man hidden in the clouds and then by the 'morality' of self-sacrifice for any random Joe.

If I live in ghetto and decide to deal drugs instead of reading a book, do not accept me into your college. If I am the son of Bill Gates and fail to recognize the potential to improve and enjoy the greatness of my inheritance, call me a playboy. Do not morally assault a child solely because he has fallen into fortune and do not praise a kid just because he lives in a "socially isolated, educationally mismanaged inner-city."

What raises man above any animal on this planet is his mind, not his muscles. Those who have taken the time to hone their brain to reason and production deserve our respect. I have lived in a middle class family, but I do not want the rich to be shackled with higher taxes and a "greater debt to society." No, I do not want such slavery; I want to leave them where they are, as models of success for every man who sees wealth creation and greater productivity as a fundamental component of happiness.