My Hero: The Virtuous Smuggler!

Rug’s inspiring Ode to Francisco got me thinking about who my hero’s are. All my heroes have a few things in common. They are loners. They think for themselves always, to a degree that often causes them to come off gruff. They don’t get along with most people, but have intense love and loyalty to those whom they resonate with. The time that they don’t spend trying to be left in peace, they spend being implacable in the face of a seemingly invincible foe in the name of what’s right.

I couldn’t help but notice that many of my heroes fell into one conspicuous occupation: The Smuggler. So I’d like to pay tribute to the Han Solo’s, Malcolm Reynolds, and Augustus Skelly’s of the world.

They crave freedom enough to give up a comfortable existence workin for the man, for a life of danger on the far outskirts of society. They are the unsung heroes of property rights. At risk of their lives they connect willing buyers with willing sellers, deftly evading the mooching middle man who would horn in on the action. They take a special joy in helping those people because they get to flout the very same nosy nelly, by the book bureaucrats that drove them to that career in the first place. And it’s a good life. Your home is your ship. You spend most of your time in isolated gorgeous views of the open sky or ocean with plenty of time to read and think between short exciting bouts of “work”. It might be the most glamorous of unglamorous lives.

In the past, smugglers have enjoyed a much deserved romantic mystique. Throughout much of history they have transported plain old needed goods like wool, precious metals, spices, and spirits. From the 16^th century wool smugglers of England to the 20^th century moonshine runners of backwoods America, they just try to get the goods from the little folk who produce them to the little folk who consume them without outside interference.

In the last 50-100 years smugglers have been a victim of freedoms success. The advance of free trade has put a lot of hard working smugglers out of business. With no artificial need created by some greedy government there’s no market for the service. Mostly what remains is what are commonly referred to as traffickers, most of whom I would guess are not virtuous. They deal in goods that are illegal, as opposed to highly taxed. These include drug runners, gun runners, and slave traders (yes, amazingly they still exist mostly trading in women and children). These last villains especially harm the smuggler name. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that all three of the fictional heroes above found time to kick the ass of a slave trader. Han freed Chewie, Mal picked the pocket of a slave trader to start a raucous bar fight. And Augustus Skelly… ok it’s been too long since I read Sparrowhawk, but I’m sure there’s something in there.

Its not all bad news for the prospective smugglers now in days. There’s good news on the horizon for those who are warming to the trade. First, there are some old standbys still available, Cuban cigars into the US for example. (If they can make it here in a bathtub, think what you can do in a decent boat! Plus you’re based in Miami!) Now the first rule of smuggling is never travel with the holds empty, so be sure to bring some hot items into Cuba. I suggest very old car parts, very new electronics, or copies of Atlas Shrugged. Also, there is a serious dearth of decent spirits in the world’s largest democracy, India. May I suggest Sandalwood for the return trip? Lucky for you you won't have competition from the dreaded Sandalwood Smuggler Veerappan anymore! Also Protectionism is on the rise. Thanks to the corn lobby, one could do well transporting CocaCola with real sugar to connesuirs in the USofA. Also in his last-day-in-office anti-French tantrum President Bush put a 300% duty on Roquefort cheese and upped the tariffs on French truffles, Irish oatmeal, Italian sparkling water and foie gras, so the cross Atlantic trade might be opening up again!

So let us raise a glass, or a plate, or pipe of something elicit to the Virtuous Smuggler, hero of property rights.

Our Favorite Quotes

Rug's List:

If you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater the effort the heavier the world bore down upon his shoulders -- what would you tell him to do? To shrug.
-Francisco D'anconia, Atlas Shrugged

I swear -- by my life and my love of it -- that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.
-John Galt, Atlas Shrugged

That's what governments are for... (to) get in a man's way.
- Captain Malcolm Reynolds, Firefly

I am a leaf in the wind - watch how I soar.
-Wash - the pilot, Firefly

No power in the 'verse can stop me now.
Also, I can kill you with my brain.
-River, Firefly

-The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money.
Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister UK from 1979-1990

By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.
John Maynard Keynes, British Economist (1883-1946)



Trisco's List:

"here's the deal: I'm the best there is, plain and simple. I mean, I wake up in the morning and I piss excellence. You know, nobody can hang with my stuff. I'm just a--just a big, hairy, American winning machine."
--Ricky Bobby

" If you can't take a little boody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. Its not safe out here. Its wonderous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But its not for the timid."
-Q

"How soon we forget history... Government is not reason. Government is not eloquence. It is force. And, like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. "

"It is far better to be alone, than to be in bad company."
-George Washington

A government is a body of people; usually, notably, ungoverned.
-Shepherd Book from Firefly

"The wind will always wear away the stone, for the stone can only crumble; the wind can change."
-Spock

"to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee."
-Ahab

"People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people."
-V

"Man [is] a rational animal, endowed by nature with rights and with an innate sense of justice."

"A free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate."

"Under the law of nature, all men are born free, every one comes into the world with a right to his own person, which includes the liberty of moving and using it at his own will. This is what is called personal liberty, and is given him by the Author of nature, because necessary for his own sustenance."

"What is true of every member of the society, individually, is true of them all collectively; since the rights of the whole can be no more than the sum of the rights of the individuals."

Plus just about anything else this guy every said.

-Thomas Jefferson

Apos' List

From Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead:

It is not advisable, James, to venture unsolicited opinions. You should spare yourself the embarrassing discovery of their exact value to your listener.

She was twelve years old when she told Eddie Willers that she would run the railroad when they grew up. She was fifteen when it occurred to her for the first time that women did not run railroads and that people might object. To hell with that, she thought---and never worried about it again.

Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values.

Show me your achievement - and the knowledge will give me courage for mine.

Others:

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly. - Albert Einstein

Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty — a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture, without appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trappings of painting or music, yet sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show. - Bertrand Russell

It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do. There is no fun in doing nothing when you have nothing to do. Wasting time is merely an occupation then, and a most exhausting one. Idleness, like kisses, to be sweet must be stolen. - Jerome K Jerome

Concentrated Benifits, Dispersed Costs.

Ok, I'm excited about my first post but don't have much to say. so below is a HI-Larious video on Cash for Clunkers. The relatively small amount dedicated to cash for clunkers means its probably less damaging then the huge bailouts of the financials, but the concrete nature of the business make the theft involve much more obvious and easy to understand. I think there is something important in this idea of concentrated benefits, dispersed costs...

Trisco

Francisco Domingo Carlos Andreas Sebastian D'anconia is my HERO

Francisco D'anconia - Copper magnate. Self-made tycoon. Playboy. Destroyer of his own massive empire ! Heroes exist plenty in the fiction aisle (in the ones worth reading anyways), especially in Rand's books - but D'anconia's the only one who stands true and strides a Titan's swagger. Its easy to be a inspiring protagonist -start deep down at the grueling bottom dressed only in rags, accessorize only with spirit and honor and inch your way to the very top. When you get there, redefine perfection. But once you are at the peak, what does it take to slowly reverse the ride if every core of your being demands you to do so? to excruciatingly grind every speck of achievement into oblivion? It takes a true Hero !
Our world needs one today - in fact, we could use a couple. We have seen the Vanderbilts, the Rockefellers, the Ambanis and Buffetts. Every one knows what it takes to become rich and maybe if I had kept up with pop culture, I'd know that going from rags to riches is cliche. Regardless, what is popular are opinions like " surely now that 'we' have created these giants, we can simply take a small small bite from their plates?", "after all, aren't we evolved / human enough to know better than survival of the fittest" and "they needed me to get there anyways". These real-world giants, at least the noblest among them, would be the Taggarts of Atlas Shrugged. They keep fighting a losing battle. We might never really know the Galts even though they exist- sorry, thats just part of the character - the men of steel will, strong muscle and razor-sharp minds, who go on and build their own Utopias. But where are the D'anconias? History has never truly had a D'anconia and its high time for Francisco to make his entry . Just to show us courage, morality, grit and to remind us of what truly makes us human. So, while I tip my hat to Dagny and wink my big brown eyes at Galt - it's Frisco who is my true hero.
He should be yours too। After all, he is the one who tells Atlas to shrug.