The Opinuary Column

The Opinion You can't always get what you want has died after contracting objectivistilla randosa nervosa, a not very rare but truly crippling disorder that confuses its victims into believing that if everybody would just do as they say the manifested Universe would be just as it should be. Additionally, and in point of contradictory fact, you can always get what you want if only people would just admit to the superior nature and reasoning faculties of their betters. Would it kill us to just lay down and assume the position? Of course not!

The Opinion, which often captivates the fevered minds of youth only to eventually corrode the measured apprehensions of age, leaves in its wake an ocean of madly drowning and flailing egos, all slapping hard and cursing at the vapidity of a world that does not embrace them and their radiance. Mimicking the Objectivist's gospel one must say Hallelujah! to every brass ring dangled, every casino advertisement proffered, every financial junkie's fix as an invitation to lordship over the material world. And, with the morphine of detachment guiding them, we can devour it all, absent engagement in that same world--we shall be safe from life while exploiting life, for there is where the circle of petulant desire goes round and round! To the victors go the losers!

Had the Opinion lived perhaps our nation would experience a continuing perfection of boundless egoism, and obscenely wealthy people would be rising like a Phoenix above the churning seas this very day, an event we all would watch with jaws agape as our betters take what they want when they want it, ramifications be damned. Burn the oil, invade the country, kill the messenger, bow to the banker, deny the lover, rape the mountain, push the pills and wag the dog: come to all things as the conqueror, the victor, the avatar! Be like gods who take what they please, and justify it as only the gods know how: it simply must be so for we have said it thusly!

The Opinion leaves behind a son You Get What You Need who wishes to thank the public for their outpouring of affection and for their glorious lust for riches and power. In lieu of flowers the family asks that you all endeavor to get what you want so that none of us can get what we need.

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The Opinion appears Friday afternoons at Jesus' General.

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