Don't fear the women warriors! They are here to help

The usual complaints were heard about my column last week from the usual suspects — How dare I! What was I thinking? How could I! What kind of an idiot am I?

It seems that, according to these folks, I was wrong to compare the Tea Party to Athena — the Greek goddess of war and wisdom.

And what exactly was wrong with the comparison? That’s simple. Two words: Sarah Palin.

Or in this case four words: Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann.

You see, at the end of a metaphoric explanation of how the traits of the Tea Party movement mirrored the birth of Athena full-grown from the forehead of Zeus, I mentioned those two Republican women as examples of modern women warriors who symbolize the strength and wisdom of the Tea Party.

Imagine that!

It turns out that some people — some otherwise supremely tolerant liberal people — don’t like strong conservative Republican women such as Palin and Bachmann.

I’m not the first to notice that, but I thought that as a follow-up to last week’s column, it would be instructive to consider some further examples of conservative women who have wielded the thunderbolt of truth and the breastplate of righteousness against the establishment forces of “business as usual.”

One person who should scare anyone who is afraid of strong women  is Ayn Rand. Coincidentally, the long-awaited film version of her most famous novel “Atlas Shrugged” has just hit the movie theaters. That novel too features a woman warrior — by the name of Dagny Taggart — who rebels against a United States government that has grown fat and feral — a dangerous combination that threatens to crush private entrepreneurship, individual creativity and the American dream.

Taggart would make a better candidate for president than either Palin or Donald Trump, and certainly much better than the usual timid Tims and unmitigated Mitts who seek the GOP nod. But that is fodder for another column.

As for Rand herself, she was one of the best-selling authors of all time, the inventor of her own philosophy, and a woman who like Palin was not afraid to say what she thought. Since she was a vigorous opponent of communism, socialism, and nanny statism, her outspokenness meant that she was vilified 60 years ago the same as Palin is today.

In a famous review of Rand’s prophetic novel “Atlas Shrugged,” conservative convert Whittaker Chambers called the book “sophomoric” and “remarkably silly.” Rand scholar Mimi Reisel Gladstein notes that when the book appeared in 1957, “reviewers seemed to vie with each other in a contest to devise the cleverest put-downs,” calling it “execrable claptrap” and “a nightmare” that was “written out of hate” and showed “remorseless hectoring and prolixity.”

This is comparable to the name-calling used against Palin — and more recently Congresswoman Bachmann. The only difference is that history has already proven Rand correct and made her assailants look like the socialist stooges they always were. Palin awaits vindication through what is very likely to be either the collapse of our country or its return to a constitutional republic at the prodding of the Tea Party. Smart money seems to be betting on the former.

Are there differences between Rand and Palin? You bet. Huge ones — most notably, the fact that Rand was a rabid atheist and Palin is a devout Christian — but that does not mean they are not both representatives of the same philosophical movement — a movement based on individual freedom, the free-market economy and constitutionally limited self-government. Indeed, Rand’s continuing relevance to the Tea Party movement validates the thesis of last week’s column — that the Tea Party’s sudden appearance as a remarkable force in American politics was possible because its roots run deep.

It is also instructive that attacks on both women tend to be visceral, personal, and dismissive. The attempts to marginalize Palin as an unintellectual boob can only be properly understood when paired with criticism of Rand in basically the same terms, even though Rand was a devoted student of history, philosophy and classical literature. Palin is a relatively easy target, but Rand not so much so. In fact, Rand had every aspect of an intellectual except for one — she was not a liberal — and thus she was dismissed as a freak and a fool.

There is much more to explore on this theme, and I intend to devote at least two more columns to powerful conservative women who have been warriors in the service of liberty.

In the meantime, I will take a break from the written word on Monday when I address the Flathead County Republican Women during their noon luncheon at the Red Lion in Kalispell. That seems like a fitting forum to continue this discussion of the principles of the Tea Party, the powerful women who preceded it, and the importance of strong individuals if we hope to avoid being forced into a collective grave.

Oh yes, and rest assured, if there are any Democratic groups that want to hear about the principles of limited government that are at the root of the Democratic Party, I would be happy to speak to them as well. The free exchange of ideas requires first of all a willingness to share them, and second a willingness to hear them. If we only converse with those who agree with us, we can neither grow nor effect change.