What would Dagny Taggart do?

We are no particular fan of nor apologist for Martha Stewart. But the little we have learned about her (from hack sput CNN) tells me she's a genuine self-made woman with singleminded determination to succeed in a man's world, even choosing to pursue it over keeping her marriage.

Think about how a woman like that probably views herself. Mutual blogroller/rollee Feces Flinging Monkey opines that his compassion for Martha Stewart slipped a notch or two upon discovering that she turned down a plea deal that she could have afforded without wincing. Now she and her employees suffer needlessly.

Would Dagny Taggart cop a 200k/community service/parole plea to make the bloodsucking Feds go away? I don't think so. You can call it arrogance, if you like, or you could call it "give the fsckers an inch and they'll . . . " No delusions of heroism, nor angular faces, nor the swooning glowing-coals-of-cigarettes-in-the-darkness-like-the-flame-of-the-human-intellect required to visualize Dagny telling the Committee to shove their Certificate up their asses.

We submit that many of the abuses we suffer today, from

• physicians leaving practice because the malpractice insurance is unaffordable,
• to the class-action lawsuit invitations we receive from time to time because, for example, a 17-inch computer monitor did not measure exactly 17 inches,
  
• to the myriad nonsense warnings on consumer products,
  

is because somebody not so long ago ran the numbers and found that copping the plea, choosing not to fight the unfair charge, was cheaper. What does this have to do with Martha and the Feds? The commonality of tactics. Threaten, then offer a settlement. Make an example of the first guy and the rest of the herd goes quietly.

The first transaction may have been cheaper. But now, thanks to the first few guys to cave, the overall costs have been transferred to the rest of us.

Update: Ilana Mercer's column frames our concerns well. Also Jonathan Gewirtz at ChicagoBoyz.

Update the second: And we borrow a page from Kipling, courtesy of Eugene Volokh.