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The beloved children's Christmas staple Frosty the Snowman is truly a nightmare to anyone who follows Ayn Rand's philosophy.
We have a group of school children as our 'protagonists'. These looter youths are attending a state-sponsored school, contributing nothing back to the society that is currently sheltering and educating them for free. The only thing that they're interested in is playing in the snow; throughout the episode they show no appreciation for nor interest in the education that they're receiving. For free.
To compound this, the school has wasted resources better used elsewhere to hire a magician to entertain the class. No explaination of this is given, which is just further proof that this so-called school has no actual interest in producing productive members of the workforce. This magician will be our real protagonist: he's self-employed and his every move is motivated by making money, as all good Randian protagonists are.
In a fit of pique, the magician throws away his hat, which the looters find and put on their snowman. The snowman promptly comes to life; and to add insult to injury, he shows no signs of acting under the aegis of enlightened self interest... in fact, many of his actions are altruistic, which is as you know a sin to a rational objectivist. This new member of the looter class immediately shows an interest in playing and cavorting around, at one point even proving a scofflaw who needs correction by a traffic officer.
As any rational Randian hero would, the magician realises that his hat was a previously undiscovered commodity and seeks to assert his ownership of it. The looters, out of misplaced altruistic concern for their new member, maintain that since they 'found' the hat, it belongs to them. Worse, rather than monitize the hat as the magician would have, they intend to use it to maintain a useless life for no return whatsoever. As is only correct, the magician employs violence to seize the hat, knowing that these looter youths will soon attempt to turn the kleptocratic government against him to maintain their claim. Sadly, the looters evade his righteous attempts at violence and escape. One of them attempts to take their new member on a train (because any story involving Randian philosophy has to involve a train at some point). In a display of their contempt for the productive class, the two looters attempt to aquire a train ticket without use of money. Having this attempt to take for themselves blocked by a rightful guardian of capitalism, they determine to seize resources without recompense anyway and stow aboard the train. This shocking act is never punished.
From here, things quickly go downhill. The snowman sacrifices his bid to reach a place where he can survive simply to preserve the useless life of his fellow looter, who failed to plan for her journey and brought this fate upon herself by not being a rational actor. Even more shockingly, the snowman knowingly enters an environs (a greenhouse) deadly to him simply to continue this 'altruistic' bid to keep this parasite alive. For a moment, it looks as though rationality and the Randian ideal will prevail, as the magician turns the snowman's foolishness against him and locks him in the greenhouse, serving up to him an ironic fate befitting his folly and irrationality.
Sadly, at this point the government (embodied by the grinning face of one 'Santa Claus', who like all looter governments, hands out gifts willy nilly to the people who only clamber for more). As a government is wont to do, he uses his unfair economic leverage against the magician to force him to surrender the resource that is rightfully his in the name of the astonishingly titled 'greater good' (for what greater good can there be than increasing one's fortunes? Sadly, the cartoon provides no answer). Santa Claus then expends more resources to preserve the snowman's life, despite the fact that said snowman has no money to pay for his treatment; and worse, that the snowman's life depends on the hat which is now no longer available to be monitized. Scoffing in the face of rational self-interest, those left on stage at this point see this as a 'happy' ending and move back on to their parasitic lifestyles, unaware that they have driven one more person closer to seeking John Gault.
We have a group of school children as our 'protagonists'. These looter youths are attending a state-sponsored school, contributing nothing back to the society that is currently sheltering and educating them for free. The only thing that they're interested in is playing in the snow; throughout the episode they show no appreciation for nor interest in the education that they're receiving. For free.
To compound this, the school has wasted resources better used elsewhere to hire a magician to entertain the class. No explaination of this is given, which is just further proof that this so-called school has no actual interest in producing productive members of the workforce. This magician will be our real protagonist: he's self-employed and his every move is motivated by making money, as all good Randian protagonists are.
In a fit of pique, the magician throws away his hat, which the looters find and put on their snowman. The snowman promptly comes to life; and to add insult to injury, he shows no signs of acting under the aegis of enlightened self interest... in fact, many of his actions are altruistic, which is as you know a sin to a rational objectivist. This new member of the looter class immediately shows an interest in playing and cavorting around, at one point even proving a scofflaw who needs correction by a traffic officer.
As any rational Randian hero would, the magician realises that his hat was a previously undiscovered commodity and seeks to assert his ownership of it. The looters, out of misplaced altruistic concern for their new member, maintain that since they 'found' the hat, it belongs to them. Worse, rather than monitize the hat as the magician would have, they intend to use it to maintain a useless life for no return whatsoever. As is only correct, the magician employs violence to seize the hat, knowing that these looter youths will soon attempt to turn the kleptocratic government against him to maintain their claim. Sadly, the looters evade his righteous attempts at violence and escape. One of them attempts to take their new member on a train (because any story involving Randian philosophy has to involve a train at some point). In a display of their contempt for the productive class, the two looters attempt to aquire a train ticket without use of money. Having this attempt to take for themselves blocked by a rightful guardian of capitalism, they determine to seize resources without recompense anyway and stow aboard the train. This shocking act is never punished.
From here, things quickly go downhill. The snowman sacrifices his bid to reach a place where he can survive simply to preserve the useless life of his fellow looter, who failed to plan for her journey and brought this fate upon herself by not being a rational actor. Even more shockingly, the snowman knowingly enters an environs (a greenhouse) deadly to him simply to continue this 'altruistic' bid to keep this parasite alive. For a moment, it looks as though rationality and the Randian ideal will prevail, as the magician turns the snowman's foolishness against him and locks him in the greenhouse, serving up to him an ironic fate befitting his folly and irrationality.
Sadly, at this point the government (embodied by the grinning face of one 'Santa Claus', who like all looter governments, hands out gifts willy nilly to the people who only clamber for more). As a government is wont to do, he uses his unfair economic leverage against the magician to force him to surrender the resource that is rightfully his in the name of the astonishingly titled 'greater good' (for what greater good can there be than increasing one's fortunes? Sadly, the cartoon provides no answer). Santa Claus then expends more resources to preserve the snowman's life, despite the fact that said snowman has no money to pay for his treatment; and worse, that the snowman's life depends on the hat which is now no longer available to be monitized. Scoffing in the face of rational self-interest, those left on stage at this point see this as a 'happy' ending and move back on to their parasitic lifestyles, unaware that they have driven one more person closer to seeking John Gault.
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