Rex Tillerson's favorite book in college: Atlas Shrugged

Is his moral compass?

“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 his effort the heavier the world bore down upon his shoulders - What would you tell him?"

I…don't know. What…could he do? What would you tell him?"

To shrug.”

Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

I think the repugs are recycling the old view of themselves as the heroic upholders of the world, the unappreciated masters who lift humanity from its natural condition of brutish misery. That sort of thinking mostly passed a hundred years ago, with the "great war", but even the most banal criminal would like to see himself as a tragic hero/victim.

as twisted and evil as it is, The White Man's Burden is at least about helping other people out

while slaughtering an enemy that resisted conquest, just wishing to be free of overlords. The poem was written at the height of european colonialism, and provided a compelling narrative justifying it.

Why didn't the Filipino people understand our virtuous intent? Why didn't the Congo welcome Leopold with open arms? Why didn't the Bengalis realize that Britain needed their crops for a higher purpose, and starve to death peacefully?

And so on...Kipling's poem was a compelling narrative, of the sort that masks a rotting soul. If you commit atrocities, its the sort of narrative that allows you to still look in the mirror and wax your mustache, with a glimmer in your eye, sad that you are so unappreciated.

"Take up the White Man’s burden—

And reap his old reward:

The blame of those ye better

The hate of those ye guard— "

In context, the poem urged a European style colonialism in the Phillipines, after we intervened in the Philippine war and helped them drive out the Spanish (not an especially hard task). Then we installed our own rulership rather than allow self-government. The Filipinos continued their long fight for freedom, and we killed about 25% of the population before they were subdued.

I guess you didn't catch the lefthanded compliment

Now he and Ryan can both drop dead.

i threw that book away after one shitty paragraph.

It takes a soul to throw it in the garbage.

I could barely get through it. Such bad writing!

I'll bet the pages are stuck together

They are all aficionados of extremely bad literature. WTF? How can anyone think that Ayn Rand is even a nominally decent writer? She is dreadful as a writer and even worse as a philosopher. What is wrong with these people?

who loves Ayn Rand.

Considering Rand was likely lashing out against the dictatorial Soviet Union, it's understandable an impressionistic mind would lash out in an opposing manner: all about the self.

Yet she was quite the hypocrite; collecting Social Security and applying for Medicare.