Who Said IT: 'atlas Shrugged' Villain Or Real-life Public Figure?

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  • 1/142 Questions

    "Whereas in the West the self is understood primarily as an autonomous ego whose existence is distinct from that of others, in the East, it is often argued there is no meaning of self that is independent of our relations to others. The self is irreducibly social. ... All of this is no doubt true..."

    • Atlas Shrugged Villain
    • Real-Life Public Figure
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About This Quiz

I often hear the criticism, "Atlas Shrugged is so far-fetched. The villains are straw men. No one in real life talks like that." I find that criticism funny, because I think many public figures, throughout history and on into the present, have issued statements that sound very much like villains from Atlas Shrugged. For each question on this quiz, I will provide you a quotation. I will ask you to determine whether the statement was issued by an Atlas Shrugged villain or a real-life public figure. After you had entered your answer, I will provide the correct answer. If it is an Atlas Shrugged villain, I will name the character who said it and provide the page number for the quotation from the 1992 hardcover edition. (Numbering is different between hardcover and paperback editions. Moreover, the page numbering often changes any time a new edition -- either hardcover or paperback -- is released. ) If the statement was issued by a real-life public figure, I will name the public figure and provide bibliographic information on the source of the quotation. Bear in mind that I am not saying someone is a bad person just because he or she sounds like an Atlas Shrugged villain. I suppose someone might think that real quotations from Ayn Rand sound like fictional characters. Ken Levine, who made the overrated video game BioShock, said as

Who Said IT: atlas Shrugged Villain Or Real-life Public Figure? - Quiz

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  • 2. 

    "To me, what democratic socialism is about is to maintain the strong entrepreneurial spirit that we have in this country."

    • Atlas Shrugged Villain

    • Real-Life Public Figure

    Correct Answer
    A. Real-Life Public Figure
    Explanation
    Bernie Sanders said this in a November 5, 2015 interview with the Wall Street Journal. A video of this can be seen and heard at http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2015/11/05/bernie_sanders_interview_with_wsj_democratic_socialism_is_about_continuing_to_produce_wealth.html .

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  • 3. 

    [On governmental seizures of private land for The Public Interest™:] "You're not taking property, you're paying a fortune for that property. Those people can move two blocks away into a much nicer house."

    • Atlas Shrugged Villain

    • Real-Life Public Figure

    Correct Answer
    A. Real-Life Public Figure
    Explanation
    Donald Trump said this to the titular host of Special Report with Bret Baer on October 7, 2015. This was the same interview where Trump told him overall that eminent domain "is a wonderful thing." This is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5deLxTaYVOU .

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  • 4. 

    [In response to someone saying that he should be able to keep the money he earns rather than for it to be taxed away:] "You don't deserve to keep all of it. It's not a question of deserving, because what government is, is those things that we decide to do together."

    • Atlas Shrugged Villain

    • Real-Life Public Figure

    Correct Answer
    A. Real-Life Public Figure
    Explanation
    On the morning of September 14, 2011, U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky went on the Don Wade & Roma radio show. When the host asked her about whether he has a right to keep his money rather than for it be taxed away, she gave this reply. See Brandon Stewart, "Rep. Jan Schakowsky: 'You Don't Deserve To Keep All Your Money,'" The Daily Signal, September 14, 2011, http://dailysignal.com/2011/09/14/congresswoman-jan-schakowsky-you-dont-deserve-to-keep-all-your-money/ .

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  • 5. 

    [Discussing with colleague how to sell their political plan to the public:] " Let the grassroots turn on the hate because that's the only thing that will make them do their duty."

    • Atlas Shrugged Villain

    • Real-Life Public Figure

    Correct Answer
    A. Real-Life Public Figure
    Explanation
    This is from an e-mail that Breitbart News chairman Stephen K. Bannon sent to his reporter Matthew Boyle, on December 16, 2014, qtd. by Betsy Woodruff, "Donald Trump's New Chief Steve Bannon Called Republican Leaders 'C**ts," The Daily Beast, August 18, 2016, http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/08/19/donald-trump-s-new-chief-steve-bannon-called-republican-leaders-c-ts.html .

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  • 6. 

    "There is a growing global anti-establishment revolt against the permanent political class at home, and the global elites that influence them..."

    • Atlas Shrugged Villain

    • Real-Life Public Figure

    Correct Answer
    A. Real-Life Public Figure
    Explanation
    Breitbart News chairman Stephen K. Bannon, qtd. by Leslie Kaufman, "Breitbart News Network Plans Global Expansion," New York Times, February 16, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/17/business/media/breitbart-news-network-plans-global-expansion.html .

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  • 7. 

    [Explaining that life necessarily contradicts itself:] "The belief that all good things move together and there need be no conflicts between them is, ultimately, a religious one. And -- by definition -- a totalitarian one."

    • Atlas Shrugged Villain

    • Real-Life Public Figure

    Correct Answer
    A. Real-Life Public Figure
    Explanation
    This is from National Review editor Jonah Goldberg, "What Is a 'Conservative'?", National Review Online, May 11, 2005, http://www.nationalreview.com/article/214416/what-conservative-jonah-goldberg .

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  • 8. 

    "The chief reason for this is that we all understand and accept the permanence of contradiction and conflict in life."

    • Atlas Shrugged Villain

    • Real-Life Public Figure

    Correct Answer
    A. Real-Life Public Figure
    Explanation
    This is from National Review magazine editor Jonah Goldberg, "What Is a 'Conservative'?", National Review Online, May 11, 2005, http://www.nationalreview.com/article/214416/what-conservative-jonah-goldberg .

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  • 9. 

    "...[economic] growth isn’t an option any more -- we've already grown too much. Scientists are now telling us that we're blowing past planetary boundaries at breakneck speed. And the hard truth is that this global crisis is due almost entirely to overconsumption in rich countries."

    • Atlas Shrugged Villain

    • Real-Life Public Figure

    Correct Answer
    A. Real-Life Public Figure
    Explanation
    This is from Jason Hickel, professor of anthropology at the London School of Economics, “Forget ‘Developing’ Poor Countries, It’s Time to ‘De-Develop’ Rich Countries,” The Guardian, September 23, 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2015/sep/23/developing-poor-countries-de-develop-rich-countries-sdgs .

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  • 10. 

    "...instead of pushing poorer countries to 'catch up' with rich ones, we should be thinking of ways to get rich countries to 'catch down' to more appropriate levels of development. We should look at societies where people live long and happy lives at relatively low levels of income and consumption not as basket cases that need to be developed towards Western models, but as exemplars of efficient living."

    • Atlas Shrugged Villain

    • Real-Life Public Figure

    Correct Answer
    A. Real-Life Public Figure
    Explanation
    This is from Jason Hickel, professor of anthropology at the London School of Economics, “Forget ‘Developing’ Poor Countries, It’s Time to ‘De-Develop’ Rich Countries,” The Guardian, September 23, 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2015/sep/23/developing-poor-countries-de-develop-rich-countries-sdgs .

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  • 11. 

    "A similar majority also believe we should strive to buy and own less, and that doing so would not compromise our happiness. People sense there is something wrong with the dominant model of economic progress and they are hungry for an alternative narrative."

    • Atlas Shrugged Villain

    • Real-Life Public Figure

    Correct Answer
    A. Real-Life Public Figure
    Explanation
    This is from Jason Hickel, professor of anthropology at the London School of Economics, “Forget ‘Developing’ Poor Countries, It’s Time to ‘De-Develop’ Rich Countries,” The Guardian, September 23, 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2015/sep/23/developing-poor-countries-de-develop-rich-countries-sdgs .

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  • 12. 

    "This is because the greatest possible misery is also the greatest possible pain, and the urge to escape pain is entirely pre-moral. It is found in creatures that have no social life and thus no possibility of morality."

    • Atlas Shrugged Villain

    • Real-Life Public Figure

    Correct Answer
    A. Real-Life Public Figure
    Explanation
    This is the view of Andrew Brown, "The Mythical Sam Harris," The Guardian, Tuesday, April 12, 2011, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/andrewbrown/2011/apr/12/atheism-myth-sam-harris .

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  • 13. 

    [Two characters discuss what they claim is the need for the government to intrude in private affairs for the purpose of saving jobs:]
    • Character 1: "The free market has been sorting it out and America's been losing."
    • Character 2 (agrees):  "Every time, every time."

    • Atlas Shrugged Villains

    • Real-Life Public Figures

    Correct Answer
    A. Real-Life Public Figures
    Explanation
    Character 1 is Vice President Mike Pence. Character 2 is Donald Trump. This conversation involves their rationalizing Donald Trump trying to use government power to discourage the Carrier corporation from closing its Indiana plant. This is quoted by Nelson D. Schwartz, "Trump Sealed Carrier Deal With Mix of Threat and Incentive," New York Times, December 1, 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/01/business/economy/trump-carrier-pence-jobs.html .

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  • 14. 

    "And the fact is, when standards like these have been proposed in the past, opponents have often warned that they would be an assault on business and free enterprise.  We can look at the history in this country.  . . .  Auto executives predicted that having to install seatbelts would bring the downfall of their industry.  It didn’t happen."

    • Atlas Shrugged Villain

    • Real-Life Public Figure

    Correct Answer
    A. Real-Life Public Figure
    Explanation
    This is from a speech that Barack Obama gave to the U.S. National Chamber of Commerce in 2011. They went online at http://www.nationaljournal.com/whitehouse/full-text-of-president-obama-s-speech-before-the-u-s-chamber-of-commerce-20110207 on February 7, 2011.

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  • 15. 

    [Explaining how government officials should address economic crises:] "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. What I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you did not think you could do before."

    • Atlas Shrugged Villain

    • Real-Life Public Figure

    Correct Answer
    A. Real-Life Public Figure
    Explanation
    While President Obama's Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel said this at the Wall Street Journal CEO Council on November 19, 2008 as an explanation of his attitude to how the federal government is to deal with the economy. This is documented at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mzcbXi1Tkk .

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  • 16. 

    "Who are we kidding? The business model of Wall Street is fraud. That's what it is."

    • Atlas Shrugged Villain

    • Real-Life Public Figure

    Correct Answer
    A. Real-Life Public Figure
    Explanation
    Bernie Sanders said this in the second Democratic presidential primary debate on November 14, 2015. You can see the debate transcript at http://www.cbsnews.com/news/democratic-debate-transcript-clinton-sanders-omalley-in-iowa/ .

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  • 17. 

    "I love the fact that America is a contradiction between our ideal of a democracy and our reality of a constitutional republic, and the reason I love that contradiction -- the contradiction that your questions don't quite allow -- is that it is in that gray area where free citizens get active and do things and push the bar and pull the bar.  To me, that is the magic of what we have."

    • Atlas Shrugged Villain

    • Real-Life Public Figure

    Correct Answer
    A. Real-Life Public Figure
    Explanation
    These are the words of the political journalist Thomas Oliphant, formerly of NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, and later a columnist with the Boston Globe.  Oliphant said this to Jan Helfeld in an interview that Helfeld uploaded onto YouTube on December 8, 2008.  That is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQ1bdP1hnSc&feature=youtu.be&t=2m9s .

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  • 18. 

    "You wouldn't want to give support to the widespread impression that you are a man devoid of social conscience, who feels no concern for the welfare of his fellows and works for nothing but his own profit."

    • Atlas Shrugged Villain

    • Real-Life Public Figure

    Correct Answer
    A. Atlas Shrugged Villain
    Explanation
    This is said by one of the three judges at the trial of Hank Rearden.  it is on page 480 of the 1992 hardcover edition.

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  • 19. 

    "It's everything related to jobs. ... I'm the guy pushing a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan. With negative interest rates throughout the world, it's the greatest opportunity to rebuild everything. Ship yards, iron works, get them all jacked up."

    • Atlas Shrugged Villain

    • Real-Life Public Figure

    Correct Answer
    A. Real-Life Public Figure
    Explanation
    Breitbart News chairman Stephen K. Bannon said this to Michael Wolff, "Ringside With Steve Bannon at Trump Tower As the President-Elect's Strategist Plots 'an Entirely New Political Movement' (Exclusive)," The Hollywood Reporter, November 18, 2016, http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/steve-bannon-trump-tower-interview-trumps-strategist-plots-new-political-movement-948747 .

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  • 20. 

    " I can see this on Wall Street today — I can see this with the securitization of everything is that, everything is looked at as a securitization opportunity. People are looked at as commodities. I don’t believe that our forefathers had that same belief."

    • Atlas Shrugged Villain

    • Real-Life Public Figure

    Correct Answer
    A. Real-Life Public Figure
    Explanation
    Breitbart News chairman Stephen K. Bannon said this to moderator Benjamin Harnwell for a 2014 panel discussion of the Human Dignity Institute. The transcript appears online as "This Is How Steve Bannon Sees the Entire World," Buzzfeed, November 15, 2016, https://www.buzzfeed.com/lesterfeder/this-is-how-steve-bannon-sees-the-entire-world?utm_term=.in2paDrkr#.pbkqZMO8O .

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  • 21. 

    "As you all know, thirty-three people lost their lives today, this morning. . . .  There's also another kind of violence though that we're going to have to think about. It's not necessarily physical violence but that the violence that we perpetrate on each other in other ways. . . .There's the violence of men and women who have worked all their lives and suddenly have the rug pulled out from under them because their job has moved to another country."

    • 'Atlas Shrugged' Villain

    • Real-Life Public Figure

    Correct Answer
    A. Real-Life Public Figure
    Explanation
    This was from a speech Barack Obama gave at an April 18, 2007 rally in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  The violent deaths he spoke of was the Virginia Tech shooting by Seung-Hui Cho.  He compared that to "another kind of violence":  namely, nonviolent actions of which he disapproves.  He said that U.S. companies hiring foreign employees was "violence" against native-born Americans not hired instead.  He also said bigoted speech counts as "verbal violence."A good counterargument arrived years earlier, from John Stossel in 2001.  Stossel observed the problem with equivocating bigoted speech with violence:  "If words are like bullets, then we will answer words with bullets. Well, I think words are words, and bullets are bullets, and it's best we keep them apart."  Obama's speech is available at http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/04/barack_obama_on_virginia_tech.html .

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  • 22. 

    "Figure out who is in your tribe, and fight to the death for your tribe, but give nothing to the enemy. No succor to the enemy. Not a cup of water, not a bowl of gruel, no, not shelter, not kind words, not conciliation, not forgiveness."

    • Atlas Shrugged Villain

    • Real-Life Public Figure

    Correct Answer
    A. Real-Life Public Figure
    Explanation
    The anarchist podcaster Stefan Molyneux tells this to a caller, Nick, on his FreeDomain Radio internet show, uploaded onto YouTube as "The Death of Terrorism | San Bernardino Shooting and Terrorist Attack," on December 6, 2015, 0:43:20 mark, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGVcDgmH2ts&feature=youtu.be&t=43m20s .

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  • 23. 

    "I don’t like to analyze myself because I might not like what I see."

    • Atlas Shrugged Villain

    • Real-Life Public Figure

    Correct Answer
    A. Real-Life Public Figure
    Explanation
    Donald Trump admitted this in a 2014 interview with biographer Michael D'Antonio, quoted by Michael Barbaro, "What Drives Donald Trump? Fear of Losing Status, Tapes Show," New York Times, October 25, 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/26/us/politics/donald-trump-interviews.html .

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  • 24. 

    "I've abandoned free market principles to save the free market system."

    • Atlas Shrugged Villain

    • Real-Life Public Figure

    Correct Answer
    A. Real-Life Public Figure
    Explanation
    Then-President George W. Bush told Candy Crowley this on the December 16, 2008 edition of CNN's State of the Union.

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  • 25. 

    "...there's always been...a belief that we're all connected, and that there are some things we can only do together, as a nation.  We believe...that through government, we should do together what we cannot do as well for ourselves. "

    • Atlas Shrugged Villain

    • Real-Life Public Figure

    Correct Answer
    A. Real-Life Public Figure
    Explanation
    Barack Obama gave this speech on April 13, 2011, "Remarks By the President on Fiscal Policy," official White House website, http://archive.is/OkwjE , accessed November 21, 2016.

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  • 26. 

    [On whether his interlocutor's life is real or just some simulation of reality imposed on him by some outside force:] “There’s a one in billions chance we're in base [real] reality. . . . We should hope that's true because otherwise if civilization stops advancing, that could be due to some calamitous event that erases civilization, so maybe we should be hopeful this is a simulation. Otherwise, we will create simulations that are indistinguishable from reality or civilization will cease to exist. Those are the two options."

    • Atlas Shrugged Villain

    • Real-Life Public Figure

    Correct Answer
    A. Real-Life Public Figure
    Explanation
    This is from billionaire Elon Musk at the ReCode conference that took place from May 31 to June 2, 2016. When Elon was first asked about this, the audience laughed, but Elon treated the idea seriously. http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/elon-musk-ai-artificial-intelligence-computer-simulation-gaming-virtual-reality-a7060941.html

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  • 27. 

    "I think it is perfectly unfair that one man should get all the breaks and leave none to others."

    • 'Atlas Shrugged' Villain

    • Real-Life Public Figure

    Correct Answer
    A. 'Atlas Shrugged' Villain
    Explanation
    This is on page 135 of the 1992 hardcover edition.  It is said by Philip Rearden, the spoiled anti-capitalist brother of Hank Rearden.

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  • 28. 

    "The end of religion in the West had more to do with 'I don't want to be told what to do, I don't want to have any rules, I don't want to have any obligations and I don't want to have any need for sacrifice.'  The reality is that to maintain a civilization requires vigilance, it requires sacrifice and it requires that you be passionately in love with something much larger than your own mere mortal existence."

    • Atlas Shrugged Villain

    • Real-Life Public Figure

    Correct Answer
    A. Real-Life Public Figure
    Explanation
    This is from Stefan Molyneux, the famous anarchist podcaster, stating his own opinion on his FreeDomain Radio podcast. It is from "On the Brink of World War III: Iben Thranholm and Stefan Molyneux," October 31, 2016, 24:10 mark, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WV_AIN4CS9M&feature=youtu.be&t=24m10s .

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  • 29. 

    "...I have enough expertise in politics and history to understand that a free market ends up as monopoly unless you force it to be free."

    • Atlas Shrugged Villain

    • Real-Life Public Figure

    Correct Answer
    A. Real-Life Public Figure
    Explanation
    WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange spoke those words in an interview with Andy Greenberg that went on Forbes magazine's website on November 29, 2010.  That is visible at http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2010/11/29/an-interview-with-wikileaks-julian-assange/5/ .

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  • 30. 

    "A country is more than an economy. We're a civic society."

    • Atlas Shrugged Villain

    • Real-Life Public Figure

    Correct Answer
    A. Real-Life Public Figure
    Explanation
    These were the sentences that Breitbart News chairman Stephen K. Bannon said to his interviewee, Donald Trump, right after complaining to him that too many Silicon Valley executives are of Asian descent. This is quoted by David A. Farenthold and Frances Stead Sellers, "How Bannon Flattered and Coaxed Trump on Policies Key to the Alt-Right," Washington Post, November 15, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-bannon-flattered-and-coaxed-trump-on-policies-key-to-the-alt-right/2016/11/15/53c66362-ab69-11e6-a31b-4b6397e625d0_story.html . Bannon equivocates being civic-minded with ensuring that not too many businesspeople in the USA are of Asian descent.

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  • 31. 

    " 'Government' is the word we use to describe the process by which our collective resources are mobilized, and our collective choices are made to achieve our collective goals."

    • Atlas Shrugged Villain

    • Real-Life Public Figure

    Correct Answer
    A. Real-Life Public Figure
    Explanation
    Environmental attorney Gary A. Patton, who was an elected official from 1975 to 1995, put this on his blog on May 13, 2010, http://www.gapatton.net/2010/05/132-democracy.html .

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  • 32. 

    "That's the trouble -- that businessmen refuse to approach us in a spirit of trust and friendship.  They seem to imagine that we are their enemies."

    • Atlas Shrugged Villain

    • Real-Life Public Figure

    Correct Answer
    A. Atlas Shrugged Villain
    Explanation
    This is spoken by one of the three judges at the trial of Hank Rearden.  It is on page 482 of the 1992 hardbound edition.

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  • 33. 

    "His old-fashioned brand of ruthlessness seems to be too much even for those predatory barons of profit."

    • Atlas Shrugged Villain

    • Real-Life Public Figure

    Correct Answer
    A. Atlas Shrugged Villain
    Explanation
    The journalist Bertram Scudder mentions that even other industrialists dislike Hank Rearden.  It is from page 485 of the 1992 hardcover edition.

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  • 34. 

    "There are no absolutes.  Reality is an illusion."

    • Atlas Shrugged Villain

    • Real-Life Public Figure

    Correct Answer
    A. Atlas Shrugged Villain
    Explanation
    Dr. Simon Pritchett, chair of Patrick Henry University's philosophy department, says this to console a mother whose child has just died.Have you noticed that although this "There are no absolutes" bromide is common, you don't hear people say it to someone who's grieving?  Someone might say that it's unrealistic that Dr. Pritchett says this to someone who's grieving.  But there is a larger point here -- when you're grieving, you're implicitly acknowledging that absolute facts are real, and your grief is the result of an absolute fact.  The quotation is from page 498 of the 1992 hardcover edition.

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  • 35. 

    "Every time I look at my face in a magnified mirror in a hotel bathroom, I jump back in surprise. Seen closely, my skin looks like the surface of a strange planet. Ridges and canyons pock my chin and lips. Forests of tiny hairs grow from my ear lobes. Unnoticed pimples rise from my nose like volcanoes. A sheen of oil coats the landscape. I half expect to see alien creatures living in minute settlements in my dimples or roving the great plains of my cheeks -- and could I look at higher magnification, I would see exactly that.  I do not identify with my body."

    • Atlas Shrugged Villain

    • Real-Life Public Figure

    Correct Answer
    A. Real-Life Public Figure
    Explanation
    --New York Times opinionator blog. This is an excerpt from a much longer, and horrifyingly neurotic blog post by Brian Jay Stanley,  "I Am Not This Body," May 6, 2013, http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/06/i-am-not-this-body/?smid=tw-share . Evidently, this exercise in neurosis was deemed a worthy opinion column by the USA's newspaper of record.

    Note that this column is not an attempt to educate people about Body Dysmorphic Disorder -- a mental illness involving alienation from one's own body; it's just a neurotic stream-of-consciousness.

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  • 36. 

    "...production is not a private choice, but a public duty."

    • Atlas Shrugged Villain

    • Real-Life Public Figure

    Correct Answer
    A. Atlas Shrugged Villain
    Explanation
    --Eugene Lawson, "the banker with a heart" -- head of the Community National Bank of Madison -- who becomes an economic regulator at the Bureau of Economic Planning & National Resources.  This is from page 533 of the 1992 hardcover edition.

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  • 37. 

    [Asked on what he wants to happen to the political system.] "I want to bring everything crashing down..."

    • Atlas Shrugged Villain

    • Real-Life Public Figure

    Correct Answer
    A. Real-Life Public Figure
    Explanation
    This is Breitbart News chairman Stephen K. Bannon, asked on what he thinks of the "Republican establishment," including the people he thinks are neoliberal globalists. Qtd. by Ronald Radosh, "Steve Bannon, Trump's Top Guy, Told Me He Was 'a Leninist' Who Wants to 'Destroy the State,'" The Daily Beast, August 21, 2016, http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/08/22/steve-bannon-trump-s-top-guy-told-me-he-was-a-leninist.html .

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  • 38. 

    [Denying that an invention is truly unique and takes a lot of mental effort:] "We're reluctant to believe that great discoveries are in the air. We want to believe that great discoveries are in our heads..."

    • Atlas Shrugged Villain

    • Real-Life Public Figure

    Correct Answer
    A. Real-Life Public Figure
    Explanation
    This is Malcolm Gladwell stating his own opinion in "In the Air: Who Says Big Ideas Are Rare?," The New Yorker, May 12, 2008, http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/05/12/in-the-air .

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  • 39. 

    "Markets are the single most destructive thing human beings have ever created."

    • Atlas Shrugged Villain

    • Real-Life Public Figure

    Correct Answer
    A. Real-Life Public Figure
    Explanation
    This was an August 18, 2011 tweet from Jonathan McIntosh, who would later become the writer and producer for the YouTube series Feminist Frequency, hosted by Anita Sarkeesian.  On account of her fame from Feminist Frequency, Ms. Sarkeesian would be a guest on The Colbert Report (in the final season) and be interviewed on CNN.  This tweet of Mr. McIntosh's is visible at https://archive.today/ohENk .

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  • 40. 

    "My problem is that I don't believe in progress, and I am skeptical of how chemistry is contributing to my humanity."

    • Atlas Shrugged Villain

    • Real-Life Public Figure

    Correct Answer
    A. Real-Life Public Figure
    Explanation
    That is from McGill University classics professor Anne Carson in the British television program "The Nobel Legacy," qtd. by Dudley Herschbach, "Imaginary Gardens With Real Toads," The Flight from Science and Reason, ed. Paul R. Gross, et al., (New York, NY:  New York Academy of Sciences, 1996), p. 12.

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  • 41. 

    "Darkness is good. ... That's power. It only helps us when they get it wrong, when they're blind to who we are and what we're doing."

    • Atlas Shrugged Villain

    • Real-Life Public Figure

    Correct Answer
    A. Real-Life Public Figure
    Explanation
    Breitbart News chairman Stephen K. Bannon said this to Michael Wolff, "Ringside With Steve Bannon at Trump Tower As the President-Elect's Strategist Plots 'an Entirely New Political Movement' (Exclusive)," The Hollywood Reporter, November 18, 2016, http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/steve-bannon-trump-tower-interview-trumps-strategist-plots-new-political-movement-948747 .

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  • 42. 

    "...you businessmen have been predicting disaster for years, you've cried catastrophe at every progressive measure and told us we'll perish -- but we haven't."

    • Atlas Shrugged Villain

    • Real-Life Public Figure

    Correct Answer
    A. Atlas Shrugged Villain
    Explanation
    This is from Atlas Shrugged.  A group of government regulators, including Eugene Lawson of the Bureau of Economic Planning & National Resources, tells Hank Rearden its ridiculous Steel Unification Plan which will destroy Rearden Steel.  Rearden tells Lawson that he can't expect this plan to bring prosperity, as it will cause Rearden Steel to run at a loss. The quotation above is Lawson's reply.  It is from page 985 of the 1992 hardcover edition.

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  • 43. 

    "Man?  What is man?  He's just a collection of chemicals with delusions of grandeur."

    • Atlas Shrugged Villain

    • Real-Life Public Figure

    Correct Answer
    A. Atlas Shrugged Villain
    Explanation
    This is said by Dr. Simon Pritchett, the chair of the philosophy department at Patrick Henry University.  It is on page 131 of the 1992 hardcover edition.

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  • 44. 

    "...we must control men in order to force them to be free."

    • Atlas Shrugged Villain

    • Real-Life Public Figure

    Correct Answer
    A. Atlas Shrugged Villain
    Explanation
    Dr. Simon Prichett, Patrick Henry University's philosophy department chair, says this on page 132 of the 1992 hardcover edition.

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  • 45. 

    "The boundaries of 'me' are fluid and blurred. We are all profoundly linked in countless ways we can hardly perceive. My decisions, choices, actions are inspired and motivated by others to no small extent."

    • Atlas Shrugged Villain

    • Real-Life Public Figure

    Correct Answer
    A. Real-Life Public Figure
    Explanation
    This comes from Firmin DeBrabander, associate professor of philosophy at the Maryland College Institute of Arts, "Deluded Individualism," New York Times Opinionator blog, August 18, 2012, http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/18/deluded-individualism/?smid=fb-share .

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  • 46. 

    "When in doubt, it's the weak that must be considered, not the strong."

    • Atlas Shrugged Villain

    • Real-Life Public Figure

    Correct Answer
    A. Atlas Shrugged Villain
    Explanation
    Orren Boyle, who runs Associated Steel and supports government regulation, says this.  It is on page 499 of the 1992 hardcover edition.

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  • 47. 

    "I want to be loved for myself -- not for anything I do or have or say or think.  For myself -- not for my body or mind or words or works or actions."

    • Atlas Shrugged Villain

    • Real-Life Public Figure

    Correct Answer
    A. Atlas Shrugged Villain
    Explanation
    This is said by James Taggart to his wife Cherryl.  It is on page 883 of the 1992 hardcover edition.

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  • 48. 

    "...private capitalism -- that is, an economic system in which land, factories, mines and transportation are owned privately and operated solely for profit -- does not work.  It cannot deliver the goods.  This fact had been known to millions of people for years past, but nothing ever came of it, because there was no real urge from below to alter the system, and those at the top had trained themselves to be impenetrably stupid on just that point."

    • Atlas Shrugged Villain

    • Real-Life Public Figure

    Correct Answer
    A. Real-Life Public Figure
    Explanation
    --My Country, Right or Left -- 1940 - 1943, ed. by Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus.  This is from  George Orwell's The Lion and the Unicorn, excerpted in that volume, (Jaffrey, NH: David R. Godine, 2000 edition), page 79 .  George Orwell really believed that market economics was less efficient than central government planning of the economy.

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  • 49. 

    "Now it may rationally be maintained that, if there is anything divine on earth, it is the state, the product of the same God-given instincts which led to the establishment of the church and family."

    • Atlas Shrugged Villain

    • Real-Life Public Figure

    Correct Answer
    A. Real-Life Public Figure
    Explanation
    --Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science third series, "Recent American Socialism" by Richard T. Ely, no. 4, April 1885: 5-74. This is from page 73.  Richard T. Ely was a pioneering American sociologist and progressive who founded the American Economic Association (AEA) and who held a strong influence on Robert La Follette, John R. Commons, and Simon Patten. Commons influenced Theodore Roosevelt, and Patten, in turn, influenced Rexford Tugwell -- an important figure in Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. Thus, much of the welfare-state measures of the New Deal can, in terms of inspiration, be traced back to the Richard T. Ely who wrote the words I quoted.

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