The Cobra Commander Dialogues: III.I.12

Originally posted on Atlas Shrugged: The Workers’ Paradise.

Midas Mulligan: I dare say you have overstayed your welcome good sir!
Cobra Commander: I tend to do that, but I’m not sure you’re really in a position to do anything about it.
Midas Mulligan: This here is my valley, and I’m the authority in these parts.
Cobra Commander: There’s been a lot of claims of authority since I’ve come here but I haven’t seen any force to back it up.
Midas Mulligan: Who needs force when I have contracts?
Cobra Commander: Every society who has ever existed since the beginning of time.
Midas Mulliagan: Yes but we have proper respect for one another and a ruthless capitalist spirit that drives us to always play fair and play by the rules, which is why we have abandoned all contracts in the rest of the world and chosen to ignore all laws we used to live under.
Cobra Commander: Nothing any of you ever says makes any sense so I certainly didn’t expect it to start now.
Midas Mulligan: It makes perfect sense! We just hold fast to one another.
Cobra Commander: It seems like I’d be quite the broken record calling you hippies again.
Midas Mulligan: Blasphemy!
Cobra Commander: Right that’s not going anywhere. And calling you terrible capitalists…
Midas Mulligan: Equally as much blasphemy, if not more!
Cobra Commander: Sure we’re going to go for a new avenue here. I want to ask you a simple question.
Midas Mulligan: Well a simple mind would only be able to come up with simple questions, ha ha.
Cobra Commander: You know you’re making it very hard not to take the easy way out on this one, but I actually really want to know this.
Midas Mulligan: Well if you must.
Cobra Commander: At any point have you, any of you, felt like there was any chance you would fail in any of this.
Midas Mulligan: Not in the slightest.
John Galt: Of course not.
Cobra Commander: Then why not try for more?
John Galt: What do you mean?
Cobra Commander: If you all are truly the best that humanity has to offer, why are you not going to do something more impressive?
John Galt: More important than restarting the world after it’s been destroyed!?
Cobra Commander: Well sure! You’ve said yourself that you’re not really pushing yourselves to your limits, don’t you… want to at least try? At least see the edge of what you can do? I mean that’s what you people are all about isn’t it?
John Galt: What could be more than what we are going for?
Cobra Commander: I don’t know, not the point! The point is that you all have claimed you are better than everyone else, but you’re… you’re not even trying. You’re so banal about your success it sickens me. I fail, all the time. But at least I push my limits! At least I… try to see how far my reach can go! You all just hide in your little valley and pat yourselves on the back and take it easy while saying you’re better than everyone else out there who’s working and scraping and at least trying to do things.
Midas Mulligan: Why try when you can just succeed?
John Galt: Yes I find trying highly overrated. It’s something poor people do.
Cobra Commander: Why should I… why should anyone care what you do when there’s no challenge in any of it?
John Galt: It’s not about the challenge. It’s about us getting what we want.
Midas Mulligan: And who cares who would like it or not. We aren’t really in the business of caring about other people.
Cobra Commander: Well, I’m going to keep trying. You know why? Because that’s what makes a good villain. Never giving up.
John Galt: Well a hero never has to give up, because nothing ever makes a hero risk having to give up. Which is really why I’ve bothered to let you run amuk like you have. There’s not hing you can do in the end to change anything.
Cobra Commander: I sure as hell will, or I will die trying. Also I currently have a giant flamethrower mounted snake tractor so… you know… kind of think the odds are actually on my side here. But still. Die trying. Fun to say.