Who is Les McGuire?

If you’ve never read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand you’ll never fully understand this essay. So, before you go any further let me just recommend that if you’ve not yet done so, obtain a copy of that book and start reading. It has the potential to change your perspective on life. This was the case with me and it was also the case with my friend Les McGuire.

I remember hearing about Atlas Shrugged back in college, but for some reason I never decided to read it. Blank out (that’s for you objectivists). After going completely broke in 2001 I remember seeing my wife reading it and her encouraging me to read it, constantly. I even remember reading somewhere that President Ronald Reagan had reportedly said something like, “Next to the Holy Bible, I prefer to read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.”

Nevertheless, I still didn’t read the book. I remember hearing others joking around from time to time with the question “Who is John Galt?” but aside from knowing it was some allusion to Rand’s book, I just wasn’t that interested. As a matter of fact it wasn’t until another friend of mine told me that he could not understand how I could claim to believe in freedom, free markets and in America and still resist reading Ayn Rand, that I finally relented and read the book.

About my experience I can only say what is bound to be a serious understatement. I wish I wouldn’t have waited to so long to meet Dagny, Reardon, Francisco, Midas Mulligan, Ellis Wyatt and John Galt. I have since fallen in love with the book and its author. I don’t mean to say that I enjoy everything in the book, nor do I mean to suggest that when it comes to Ayn Rand I turn my brain off and give a blanket endorsement, of course I don’t mean that. But, I will say, that if you have any interest whatsoever in living a life that you love, it is time for you to get to know the characters of Ms. Rand’s book. Or should I say books? We’ll leave that for a different discussion.

It was reading Atlas Shrugged for the first time that I realized what it meant to be a man of the mind. Reading the book also helped me to remedy a number of intellectual contradictions that I’d been stewing over privately for years. Most notably, I was finally able to identify a rational explanation to my mental aversion related to the common notions of faith and religion. These concepts are, to me today, something entirely more useful than they were before I read Atlast Shrugged.

I could go on and on about the many different ways reading Ayn Rand quite probably saved my life. Reading Atlas Shrugged saved me from something much more profoundly disturbing than the demise of my physical body, mental death. The paramount hero in the book is John Galt, though the reader doesn’t really get a sense for this until at least half way through the book. In Galt’s famous radio address he says,

“Man’s mind is his basic tool of survival. Life is given to him, survival is not. His body is given to him, its sustenance is not. His mind is given to him, its content is not. To remain alive, he must act, and before he can act he must know the nature and purpose of his action…To remain alive, he must think.”

I had already reached a point in my life where after long struggle I had learned for myself the substance of what John Galt is here pointing out. However, it was Ms. Rand, through her characters, that gave me added courage to stay the course, and the idea that I was not alone.

Many objectivists are still surprised, that having become fully indoctrinated by Ms. Rand’s writings and speeches, I have managed to keep my “faith” and still hold my religious convictions. This too is a topic for another time and place, but let it here suffice me to say that thanks to Ms. Rand I now have a more firm grasp on many rational, conceptual formations critical to life beyond the typical mysticism so prevalent in the minds of so many today. I’m sure this could be discomforting to my fellow religionists and Ayn Rand disciples alike. But, like Ms. Rand’s classical protagonists, the discomfort of my associates does not tempt me to equivocate on matters of truth.

Over time, and after much study Ms. Rand and her fictional characters became prominent heroes of mine, and back to the topic at hand, also to my friend Les McGuire. A full description of the friendship between Les and I is, yet again, something for another time. But, it is important to explain that we were friends of the most rational kind. We were not friends because of mutual emotional affinity, childhood association, family or church connections, etc. Les and I became friends because of our common ideas and interests and this defined our relationship.

Unfortunately, Les and another friend of mine, Ray Hooper were tragically killed in an airplane crash in Provo, UT in June of 2006. With Les gone, I have found myself often returning to the characters of Ms. Rand’s novels for the familiar feeling that so closely resembles how it seemed when I was spending time with my friend.

Les and I did a morning talk radio program every day of the week for almost a year. We talked about subjects across the board, from silly to very serious. We shared our ideas together in a public form that was engaging and satisfying for us both. I’m not so sure we would have changed our pattern even if someone would have told us that the conversations weren’t going out over the airwaves, because the time we spent was rewarding all by itself.

One day, as Les and I sat discussing something – off the air – he turned to me and out of the blue asked, “Rick, if you had the opportunity to exchange your mind for one day with anyone who has ever lived, who would it be?”

The question was unexpected. The first thought that came to my mind was “I’d rather keep mine, thank you.” Les laughed and teased me from that day on for being so arrogant. I told him that if I was arrogant, then I was rationally so. My explanation to him was simply that in my estimation I had spent my life developing my own mind and it would be useless to exchange my brain with someone else only to return a day later with my own mind, remembering nothing from the experience.

I told Les at the time, “I’d rather have a good visit with anyone in history who had a brilliant mind and therefore be enabled to improve myself.”

“This,” I explained, “is why I read.” This is the point. Les and I agreed, that for both of us, reading had become a way to probe the minds of great men and women, to get to know them and their ideas, and to measure the value of their contribution to the intellectual marketplace of ideas.

“Improvement,” I later suggested in our conversation, “is my constant goal, not just an experience here or there.” I suppose each of us could answer the question Les asked me that early morning, and give different answers based on our unique life perspectives. But, to me, it boils down to one fundamental point. Do you love your life?

Are you living the life you would freely choose if nothing stood in your way? If you can honestly answer yes to these questions it speaks volumes about where you are headed in life and what you have to offer those you love as well. Improvement and progression are easy to talk about, but to live a life dedicated to such a goal takes more than simple wishing.

Just a few months before the plane crash Les started hosting his own radio program called “the Producer Revolution.” Every weekday morning at precisely 9:05am anyone in the world could tune in and hear Les make his bold yet quizzical pronouncement, “I am the man who loves his live.”

He started his show almost every day with this declaration. Of course, to the readers of Atlas Shrugged, he was obviously copying the statement of John Galt, early in his radio address – answering the then common question, “Who is John Galt?” But, why did Les do that? He even had custom plates for his Mercedes once again taking on the persona of John Galt. I don’t think very many of our friends have ever taken the time to think it through.

Les was a great example of someone who strived for perfection and progression in his life. I never saw him yield to the momentum of the tide of mediocrity. He loved his life and he loved those around him – starting with his wife, his children, his close family and friends. Anyone who spent any time around Les could easily see this, and could see that ideas like the one’s I’ve been talking about caused his entire demeanor to seem noticeably different than almost anyone who happened to be around him.

John Galt, in his radio address, goes on to answer, “I am the man who does not sacrifice his love or his values.” This, to me, is not simple fiction. It’s an invitation to live a different sort of life.

Not everyone is ready for Ms. Rand’s invitation (delivered through Galt), but in time – I’m convinced that almost all of us begin looking for it. Every man born into the world without serious mental defect has an innate sense that his life is important, that he is important, and that it is within his grasp to accomplish great things. It is not in the nature of man to be depressed or to harbor deep despair about the future. Apathy is not our natural state of mind.

Small children are the best example of how naturally hopeful and heroic the opportunity of life is to mankind. As Ayn Rand clearly explains in her introduction to The Fountainhead:

“It is not in the nature of man—nor of any living entity—to start out by giving up, by spitting in one’s own face and damning existence; that requires a process of corruption whose rapidity differs from man to man. Some give up at the first touch of pressure; some sell out; some run down by imperceptible degrees and lose their fire, never knowing when or how they lost it. Then all of these vanish in the vast swamp of their elders who tell them persistently that maturity consists of abandoning one’s mind; security, of abandoning one’s values; practicality, of losing self-esteem. Yet a few hold on and move on, knowing that that fire is not to be betrayed, learning how to give it shape, purpose and reality. But whatever their future, at the dawn of their lives, men seek a noble vision of man’s nature and of life’s potential. It does not matter that only a few in each generation will grasp and achieve the full reality of man’s proper stature—and that the rest will betray it. It is those few that move the world and give life its meaning…“

The key to living the heroic life is rediscovering that fire within. I have learned for myself that in order to understand the affairs of societies and nations, one must first come to understand the basic nature of men and their affairs.

In order to understand how to reform or improve a nation or a community, it is first necessary to clearly understand how to change individually. This is the tragic error of so many who set out to save the world with no real clue of how to save themselves.

There exists no shortage, in the world, of those whose own happiness seems eternally illusive to themselves and yet who at the same time naively and irrationally embark on a mission to save the world from their own despair. This is a dangerous condition for all those affected. No leader can be trusted who cannot first lead himself. No teacher should be trusted if he has not found in his own life the principled path to happiness. No politician, no businessman, no coach, no adviser, and no parent can effectively perform the sacred responsibility of guiding and directing others if they do not themselves know the ultimate destination of their prescribed path.

This is a critical difference between the producers and the consumers in the world. Beware of those whose own misery drives them to a constant and desperate search for escape from reality by ordering around others for their “own good.” Beware of those who have no vision of the future but thrive off of being a leader. Look instead for those who have a vision of the future and who have some principle-based reason for leading.

The greatest of all teachers has said, “By their fruits ye shall know them.” I know this advice to be sound and powerfully effective. There are innumerable voices in the world speaking to those looking for the reality of life, the path of freedom and prosperity and peace. It is important to discern between the voices of consumers, who simply seek to control and manipulate, from the voices of producers, who actually have a substantive desire and ability to lead.

Look for the producers, they are the men and women of the mind, who love their life. Most of us spend a significant portion of our lives yearning subconsciously for someone to help us find answers to discover this same state of mind. Unfortunately, too often were are unable to articulate the source of our gnawing discontent.

The metaphor created between the two main characters of the Wachowski brothers’ film The Matrix illustrates a similar situation.

Morpheus: . . . They got to you first, but they’ve underestimated how important you are. If they knew what I know, you’d probably be dead.

Neo: What are you talking about? What . . . what is happening to me?

Morpheus. . . I imagine that right now you’re feeling a bit like Alice, tumbling down the rabbit hole? Hm?

Neo: You could say that.

Morpheus: I can see it in your eyes. You have the look of a man who accepts what he sees because he is expecting to wake up. Ironically, this is not far from the truth. Do you believe in fate, Neo?

Neo: No.

Morpheus: Why not?

Neo: Because I don’t like the idea that I’m not in control of my life.

Morpheus: I know exactly what you mean. Let me tell you why you’re here. You’re here because you know something. What you know you can’t explain. But you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life. That there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is but it’s there, like a splinter in your mind driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do you know what I’m talking about?

How many of us have felt that exact feeling; a feeling of knowing something is wrong in the world but not able to explain it and not knowing what to do about it? It is no coincidence that most who come across this publication can identify with exactly what I’m saying.

A few years ago when I first met Les, after seeing that we had certain aligned interests, we talked about organizing our friends for the purpose of starting a revolution—a moral revolution that could sweep across the nation. We talked about the revolution’s ultimate objectives, what drove us in wanting to initiate such a revolution, the positives and negatives of doing so, and the most appropriate way we could do it.

Les later explained, while posting a response to a question online,

This is why I have the passion I do, because of the materialism and consumerism so prevalent in the world. I believe it will take a revolution to get us to that point where people live the lives they were sent here to live. When I first started to realize this, I asked myself, “What are we doing to save the Constitution of the United States?” Most everyone I knew then was basically broke, living paycheck to paycheck, selling their time for money. They were slaves; their time and energy were not their own. I met Rick; we talked about it, and we decided what we could do to prepare and help people get free. We agreed that if we could help them regain their labor and time back (financial independence) and then teach them the core principles of how to be a producer, we could effect massive change in the world.

Everything you see here, and everything we do, is aimed toward that end. If you understand this about us, much of what you see us do and say will make more sense to you.

Organizing a revolution is no small or temporary undertaking. If you are interested in the goals, mission, and purpose outlined here, then you are invited to join the revolution by making a public declaration, a personal commitment to live a principle-centered life. The following is what we call the FreeCapitalist Pledge™:

We who are not about to die, we who love our lives and who freely choose to acknowledge that ‘God governs in the affairs of men’;

Stand forth and individually pledge -

I choose to create more value in the world than I consume.

I choose to reject idleness, force, deception & graft.

I choose to think, to act and to govern myself.

I choose faith in principle not speculation or chance.

I choose liberty and life; happiness and peace.

In a world addicted to scarcity, I dissent.

I am a Capitalist.

This public declaration is the only cost of becoming a member of the FreeCapitalist Project, and it’s only the beginning. Individual members are invited to continue on a path of personal prosperity and civic service. Members are introduced to opportunities to learn, teach, attend local community councils, forums and study groups.

I am constantly grateful to have had amazing influences in my life like Ayn Rand and the characters of Atlas Shrugged. Even more importantly, I am grateful for peers, colleagues, family and friends who strive every day to exemplify the virtues and commitments of society’s producers.

If you did not know anything about my friend Les McGuire before June of 2006, I invite you to finish reading the FreeCapitalist Primer, and when you are finished I invite you to pick up a copy of Atlas Shrugged. Don’t put it down until you’ve read for a while. It will take some time, but the investment is well worth it.

The opening line of Atlas Shrugged reads, “Who is John Galt?” When you’re finished with the assignment I’ve just given you, you’ll have a better understanding of why I titled this essay the way I did. Perhaps then, when you are little more familiar the ideas this Project, will you occasionally take the opportunity to substitute the phrase and at just the right time ask a friend, “Who is Les McGuire?”

“Are you living the life you would freely choose, if nothing stood in your way?” When you are ready to be a man or woman who loves your life – no excuse will do.

* This essay is taken from the most recent version of the FreeCapitalist Primer which can be downloaded as a FREE eBook.