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When will Atlas shrug?
Denver Post ^ | 03/15/2009 | John Andrews

Posted on 03/15/2009 7:12:05 PM PDT by george76

What is the breaking point? Where will the resistance form? Heavy questions, but unavoidable in the current political climate. The productive members of society can only be pushed so far, some say.

What they envision is not defiance of law or a reversal of the election. It is people's growing disengagement from a new economic order that punishes effort and rewards envy — the creepy future that Bill Ritter and Barack Obama intend for us.

Columnist Michelle Malkin calls that withdrawal "going Galt."

Malkin was the first speaker last weekend when several hundred Coloradans gathered for a free-market leadership conference in Colorado Springs. Her reference was to John Galt, the individualist hero of Ayn Rand's novel, "Atlas Shrugged." She told of seeing a placard at the protest rally for Obama's stimulus bill signing that warned: "Atlas will shrug."

So what, you ask. In human behavior, incentives matter. People are choosers, not automatons. Mess them over enough and they're out of here. All history proves it. "We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us." That bitter joke among Soviet factory drones sums up collectivism's ultimate failure wherever tried.

As ever more people ride in the wagon and fewer are left to pull it, there will come a breaking point. Crowding taxation onto the highest earners and debt onto our kids, as President Obama proposes, invites collapse.

Ignoring the constitution at will, as Gov. Bill Ritter and the spending lobby do, breeds contempt. Ruin must result.

Cold War victory taught us the power of ideas. The East crumbled when the West asserted the superiority of liberty, wakened by thinkers like F.A. Hayek with his expose of the road to serfdom and Frederic Bastiat with his ridicule of "everyone seeking to live at the expense of everyone else."

(Excerpt) Read more at denverpost.com ...


TOPICS: Editorial; Front Page News; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: Colorado
KEYWORDS: atlas; atlasshrugged; barack; barackobama; billritter; gault; johngalt; malkin; michellemalkin; obama; pareto; paretoprinciple; shrugged
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To: george76

“The East crumbled when the West asserted the superiority of liberty”
+ + +

Liberty!

That’s our rallying cry.


21 posted on 03/15/2009 7:58:01 PM PDT by Canedawg (Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.)
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To: Frantzie

John Andrews is director of the Centennial Institute at Colorado Christian University


22 posted on 03/15/2009 7:59:04 PM PDT by george76 (Ward Churchill : Fake Indian, Fake Scholarship, and Fake Art)
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To: george76

A viable alternative to the cash system will have to emerge. Go Gault all you want, you still need to eat. Any Gault’s Gulch will have to be virtual because every inch of soil can come under mamma guv’mint’s great hog-fat sway.


23 posted on 03/15/2009 8:00:09 PM PDT by AD from SpringBay (We deserve the government we allow.)
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To: wombtotomb

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2203589/posts

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHvTy_fVdJ8


24 posted on 03/15/2009 8:00:40 PM PDT by george76 (Ward Churchill : Fake Indian, Fake Scholarship, and Fake Art)
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To: george76

I have been working on a transition from corporate employment to small business. A good conservative CPA can help a small business really starve the marxist beast of revenue!


25 posted on 03/15/2009 8:01:38 PM PDT by MtnClimber (Zer0-bama intelligence, smaller than a quark, more difficult to find than a Higgs boson)
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To: george76

What the Libtards do not realize is that as we reduce what we earn there is less to tax, meaning less revenue for government. As we spend less, there is less taxes to be collected from sales. The deficits will increase. The problems will grow.

The Libtards don’t know this as they don’t know that cutting taxes increases revenue through incentives to earn more. We don’t work for the benefit of government or our lazy fellow citizens on the government teet.

Let them learn the lesson the hard way.


26 posted on 03/15/2009 8:03:18 PM PDT by aps
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To: george76

A debt of gratitude to you techno geek! I promise to have my son give me a lesson on how to post links properly, and a kind person sent me an email on how to do so as well.

I can type fast, but that is because I learned on a typewriter in HS, LOL.

Thanks again, FRiend!


27 posted on 03/15/2009 8:03:51 PM PDT by wombtotomb (Since it is above his paygrade, why can't we err on the side of caution about when life begins?)
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To: george76
F.A. Hayek and Frederic Bastiat!

Absolutely required reading. Many times posted about and discussed here 10-years ago.

The Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the writings of the Founding Fathers and these two gentlemen are all that are needed when the time comes to throw off gentle serfdom and re-establish a Constitutional Republic based on freedom and liberty.

28 posted on 03/15/2009 8:04:56 PM PDT by SuperLuminal (Where is another agitator for republicanism like Sam Adams when we need him?)
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To: dixiechick2000; ROTB

Great bumper sticker ping!


29 posted on 03/15/2009 8:05:43 PM PDT by rom (Obama '12 slogan: Let's keep on hopin'!)
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To: familyop; Grampa Dave; abb; BIGLOOK; tubebender; neverdem; forkinsocket; M. Espinola

Classical Athens lasted about 170 years. This may be all that we can do as Americans before sinking into the mire of typical governmental tyranny that most of the world has faced since the Sumerians built their first city.

In a thousand years, someone might emerge with the Federalist Papers and the Constitution and wonder about us and examine what went wrong.


30 posted on 03/15/2009 8:05:45 PM PDT by george76 (Ward Churchill : Fake Indian, Fake Scholarship, and Fake Art)
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To: wombtotomb

HTML Sandbox 2008

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2024261/posts


31 posted on 03/15/2009 8:14:57 PM PDT by george76 (Ward Churchill : Fake Indian, Fake Scholarship, and Fake Art)
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To: MtnClimber

the Cloward-Piven Strategy


32 posted on 03/15/2009 8:17:50 PM PDT by george76 (Ward Churchill : Fake Indian, Fake Scholarship, and Fake Art)
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To: george76
Just look at the stock market and the stores being shuttered around town. Businesses are cutting back in anticipation of being taxed out of business and being "organized" by union labor so they can't compete in the marketplace. The Sportsmanswarehouse in Pocatello is being closed. The parent company claims they can't get sufficient credit to keep the shelves stocked. The shelves are indeed bare. Especially firearms, ammo and reloading supplies. The parking lot was full today with "store closing" discounts. I looked around for a bit and didn't see anything I really needed (in stock).
33 posted on 03/15/2009 8:22:53 PM PDT by Myrddin
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To: RWB Patriot
I hope the producers will remember their loyal workers when they go on strike.

Didn't work out too well for Eddie.

34 posted on 03/15/2009 8:25:30 PM PDT by rawcatslyentist (Glittering prizes, and endless compomises, shatter the illusion of integrity. Yeah!)
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To: familyop
"Atlas" better describes people who can live on very little than those who consume very much. The "shrug" is already occurring. One effect will be that of most container ships being scrapped.

There have been threads on idle containers and rail cars this week. A fair amount of Asia to Europe cargo passes into west coast U.S. ports, travels by train to the east coast, then is carried on ships to Europe. Even that traffic is down. The cheap shipping on container ships is what makes Asian manufacturing viable by giving them access to the world market. The world isn't buying right now.

35 posted on 03/15/2009 8:26:56 PM PDT by Myrddin
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To: Williams
People are pretty well aware that socialism will mean less for everyone. The present crisis consists in the fact that people also believe that what passes for free markets these days will also mean less for everyone.

It was easy to believe the conservative pitch when it was plausible that all could get rich that way. At the moment, that seems like a cynical lie to half the country. It wasn't and isn't, but that is what it looks like to men who have lost fortunes. So they are simply sunk in pessimism.

They don't believe the old song and dance that all can get rich throwing money at the NASDAQ. They don't believe the older song and dance that everyone can get rich off Uncle Sugar. They don't believe much of anything, frankly. They just sink into gloom.

"You are all going to die because you didn't listen to me" doesn't get them hopping. They think "yes on one and no on two", and sink deeper into gloom.

The cure has to be a lot more upbeat than this, without lacking realism.

36 posted on 03/15/2009 8:29:27 PM PDT by JasonC
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To: george76

37 posted on 03/15/2009 8:37:06 PM PDT by Islander7 (If you want to anger conservatives, lie to them. If you want to anger liberals, tell them the truth.)
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To: george76
"In a thousand years, someone might emerge with the Federalist Papers and the Constitution and wonder about us and examine what went wrong."

"Largesse from the public treasury".
38 posted on 03/15/2009 8:40:25 PM PDT by Windcatcher (Obama is a COMMUNIST and the MSM is his armband-wearing propaganda arm.)
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To: rawcatslyentist

But it did for the brakeman. And Eddie chose to stay with the train, he wasn’t abandoned.


39 posted on 03/15/2009 8:50:36 PM PDT by RWB Patriot ("Let 'em learn the hard way, 'cause teaching them is more trouble than they're worth,")
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To: JasonC
JasonC said: "The cure has to be a lot more upbeat than this, without lacking realism. "

I don't think so. Here in Kalifornia there just isn't going to be enough revenue to satisfy all those who expect the state to be part of the solution and not part of the problem. Massive numbers of public employees are going to be plenty disappointed. They are due some realism and there will be nothing "upbeat" about it.

40 posted on 03/15/2009 8:53:43 PM PDT by William Tell
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