Posted on 07/30/2012 5:45:37 AM PDT by Kaslin
Where is a man who can save us? A man of virtue and action who can rebuild our economy and culture? We must find a true-to-life John Galt.
I think America’s best shot at economic recovery and restoring constitutional freedom is to nurture men and women who emulate the virtues of John Galt, a hero in Ayn Rand’s magnum opus novel, Atlas Shrugged. Galt is a man of unparalleled virtue, intelligence and action in a fictional U.S. economy that is eerily identical to the present-day U.S. economy.
Galt is an American inventor who lives and breathes his philosophy: “I swear—by my life and my love of it—that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.” What Galt means is that he will earn happiness through his virtues of: “…rationality, independence, integrity, honesty, justice, productiveness, pride.”
In Atlas Shrugged, college professors, state scientists and government bureaucrats advocate “shared sacrifice” which is code for theft, lust and brute force. In the novel, most American citizens choose short-term pleasure and a false sense of security over the truth, enabling the government to turn against productive entrepreneurs.
The government annihilates private property rights and passes regulations like the “Anti-dog-eat-dog Rule” that outlaw basic competition and free trade. The scientific community becomes a branch of the government (much like today’s situation with Obamacare, the HHA, the EPA and socialized green tech). And Americans who once drove cars are soon driving covered wagons.
The U.S., as depicted in Atlas, is similar to today’s reality where Americans are increasingly falling for the government’s anti-wealth mantra. Pew reports as of July 16 that: “By two-to-one (44% to 22%), the public says that raising taxes on incomes above $250,000 would help the economy rather than hurt it...[even among Americans who identify themselves as ‘Republicans,’ only a minority of] 41% say this would hurt the economy…”
And, like the government stooges in Atlas, our President is telling Americans that he will make business owners pay more taxes and this will somehow create jobs. Obama recently pitched his plan at a July 13 campaign stop in Roanoke, VA: “If you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. … If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that! Somebody else made that happen!”
What Obama failed to mention is that entrepreneurial Americans will not stick around and pay the highest effective corporate income tax rate in the world (a federal/state integrated rate of 39.2 percent). The U.S. government is even threatening foreign banks that allow wealthy Americans respite from our high tax rates. Beginning in 2012, “Foreign banks that once offered secrecy will have to report on their U.S. clients or else face 30% fines on their U.S. investments…” reports TIME Magazine.
Well, self-made entrepreneurs are packing up and saying, “See ya, Uncle Sam!” Think billionaire co-founder of Facebook Inc., Eduardo Saverin who renounced his U.S. citizenship in May to become a resident of Singapore. And Saverin is not alone. TIME reports that a record numbers of American citizens (1,788 individuals in 2011) are relinquishing their U.S. citizenship.
In Atlas, entrepreneurs flee to Galt’s Gulch—an isolated community where “men of the mind” go on “strike” and refuse to use their talents to advance socialism. Let’s prevent our country from heading toward this scenario—where we lose our best and brightest, as well as our freedom.
So what does America need to do in order to attract and retain the ‘John Galt’ types who will save her economy and culture? Here are my suggestions:
1.) Take Galt’s advice and “…start by abolishing all income taxes.”
2.) Stop devaluing the U.S. dollar. Rand describes an economy that is much like ours: “The wads of worthless paper money were growing heavier in the pockets of the nation, but there was less and less for that money to buy. …the printing presses of the government were running a race with starvation, and losing.” Galt tells the government, “…there are no funds behind your blank check.”
3.) Never believe force will inspire entrepreneurs to innovate. Galt tells government bureaucrats that an entrepreneur under force will “become a robot.”
4.) Let entrepreneurs produce. Consider adding Rand’s phrase to the Constitution: “Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of production and trade…”
5.) Live the philosophy of thinkers like Rand, Aristotle, Aquinas, Madison, Hamilton, Thoreau and Locke. We cannot simply etch profound ideas into D.C. monuments and then forget about them.
6.) Eliminate all anti-business rules. As Galt’s sweetheart and entrepreneur Dagny Taggart counsels: “Start decontrolling. ...Start lifting taxes and removing controls.”
Next week, I will continue this discussion. Meanwhile, I encourage you to read Atlas Shrugged.
That is your conclusion. Another way to say it would be, "John Galt did not want to work as a slave, so he dropped out of society."
If you consider the current direction of the coutry, people like Barack Obama are counting on one thing - that the productive people in society, at the end of the day, will continue to be productive. Extending that line of logic, those who are productive, will continue to offer goods and services that the rest of the country wants, and will continue to pay whatever taxes are foisted upon them.
John Galt didn't "run away and hide," as you claim; he simply chose not to be a slave any longer. Liberals counted on a Galt-like group of people to always be there. If you would rather "stay and fight," at what point do you tip over? When does your hard work pay off? How do you change the status quo?
The vast majority doesn’t want to give up their own government pork. Until a year or so ago the nation’s biggest “entitlement” was the single payer socialized schooling system. Even among people who are otherwise conservative few are willing to wean themselves from the government tit.
Excellent post!
We need to start walking the talk, if you will.
We all need to go galt. To begin, we need to have a coordinated week long strike of all the business owners and workers in the country who are sick of being denigrated as greedy capitalist pigs by the left. Shut the country down for one week to show who really produces.
The problem in the U.S. isn't the truly needy. If we all helped the truly needy, the needy would want for nothing.
The problem is the wanting segment of our society. Jesus himself simply looked at the wanting blind man - who was faking his blindness to get free handouts rather than work - because there was no reason to help him when he could very easily help himself.
I doubt anyone has a problem with those in need. I have a big problem helping those who are simply in want. That's where I draw the line on "charity."
I'll bet at least 75% of those on social programs today are able bodied, and have no legitimate excuse not to work. They're just too lazy, and we tax payers are being used as political slaves to guarantee them everything they want in exchange for their vote.
Do you really think Christ would approve of this ?? No, he wouldn't, and didn't. He taught people to live without Cesar. He taught people to survive on their own. When they survive on their own, and everyone who can work does (If you don't work you don't eat), there's no problem with sharing the fruits of everyones labor (and it's volentary).
Look you are fighting the wrong fight, it would appear.
America is everything. Everything.
China. Europe. Russia. South America. All of those places are NOT America, and frankly do not matter.
America is key. Everything.
We need to get back to that focus.
Unfortunately, unless we are able to turn them out via the ballot box, I think it will take more. If there is a reduction in tax receipts, they will pass a capital assets tax. If that isn't enough, they will start nationalizing businesses and the Fed will continue to just create more money. November is the last chance to pull back from the brink. Fascistic governments and other forms of totalitarianism ultimately consume their host country and end violently. Sometimes, it takes a very long time - like Cuba which still limps along.
Then why don’t they? Because they are too in love with life and because they live by one code when it comes to their own life but by another in their dealings with others. They are trying to “balance individualism and Altruism”.
Yes, I’m not talking about “social programs.” I’m talking about the individual service of one person towards others, because only an individual (or a few individuals) has even a chance of helping others with their real needs.
You can’t cut altrusim out of human nature. That only works in fiction. Objectivism, in the end, became just another cult. Human beings are never going to be some kind of cut-out figures in an Ayn Rand novel. There’s a reason why must people move past Ayn Rands’s philosophy after they reach college age. Altrusim is part of human natue....it’s not some kind of philosophy that we pick up from a book. It’s all about balancing the needs of ourselves & others in making a society work. I love the individualism that the United States has, until the recent troubles, been founded upon; but the Randian world-view that altrusim is the cause of mankinds downfall is foolish. Life is more complicated than the screaming cardboard figures that Rand has drawn.
I salute you for doing your part!
Now, as to ebay and amazon...Nothing wrong with buying from ebay and amazon, but let me tell you they are very difficult on those smaller sellers. On ebay for example, a seller can add shipping costs to the price of an item, but he won’t get that money or any other funds from the sale, until 3 weeks after he ships at his own expense. Paypal and ebay will see to it. Amazon also keeps a seller waiting, while demanding that they ship and trust Amazon. Ebay’s latest policy atrocity is to offer buyers the option of a “partial refund” when they’re not satisfied. Thus if a buyer doesn’t care for the price he willingly paid he can always plan on being dissatisfied, maybe get himself a retroactive discount; it’s all up to ebay arbitration, and ebay tends to favor the buyer. (Read ebay’s community forums sometime, see what sellers’ experiences have been.)
Therefore while I admit ebay is a buyer’s paradise (especially for bad faith buyers looking to take advantage), I take any opportunity that presents itself, to recommend bonanza.com. They treat their sellers far better, listings are free; they don’t try to police communications between sellers and buyers; they permit sellers to state that they will accept money orders and checks. They don’t hold the funds or let Paypal hold them. Sellers don’t have to ship until payment is in their hands, literally.
Bonanza hasn’t the quantity and variety of bigger sites, but if you’re looking for something, please look there first!
Individual charity is fine. Forced charity is slavery. No man should be used as another mans slave.
The biggest problem in America today is forced charity for those who are NOT in need. They just want to live a work free, lucrative, comfortable life on the backs of everyone else. As long as the politicians can continue to feed on our tax dollars, the sloth will continue to feed on them as well. This is why, if every American cut back on anything with an attached tax, the politicians would have no choice but to pay attention. WE outnumber them.
We can survive without the governments money, but the government can't survive without ours. It's up to us to tell THEM how to spend it, or we're not going to let them have it anymore.
Sure, the self serving politicians will try to tax us even more, but if they do, those tax payers who aren't paying that much attention to politics will start, because they'll be feeling the pain as much as everyone else. The silent majority would not be happy.
The PTB have a secret they don't want us to know. We who pay taxes hold all the power over the politicians. We outnumber them. We call the shots. People have just forgotten.
True. They would. And when they start forcing people to work at the point of a gun don’t you think the collapse will already have happened and the only way out will be to move away from Altruism towards Individualism. America was founded on Individualism but it did not practice it fully and consistently. Slavery is probably the best example. Had we as a society moved more and more towards practicing Individualism where would we be today? It was after slavery was abolished that America saw the greatest expansion but in the latter part of the 19th century there was a movement towards Altruism and “progressivism” and we are seeing the result today.
Nice platitudes, but I’m not into discussing things with a billboard.
Nor did I say anything about government intervention, so I just don’t know what you’re trying to say.
Nor did I mention China, Europe, Russia, or anywhere else.
If you can’t be clearer, I’ll just mosey along and hope you do too!
Have a great day.
Well said, Lady Lucky! As Americans we have not shown the kind of courage it will take to turn this nation around. It’s really no more complicated than just saying “NO! I will not participate in the destruction of the lives of myself, my children or my neighbors!
Will do. I'll check it out. Anything to avoid attached taxes like a plague. Why not? They're just going to give my hard earned money to some welfare slacker anyway, right? I'd rather use it to support my own family.
I wish you hadn't asked! Some are just running with a few unexamined premises, like Hank Rearden. IMO the majority are flaccid, complacent, selfish, unpatriotic, habit-bound, reality-evading chickenshits.
Slavery was never abolished. They've just chosen a different group of people to labor for them.
Tax payers are forced to support the freeloaders BEFORE they even get their paychecks. The cash is deducted BEFORE the paper is printed. The tax slaves get to keep what little is left over to support their own families. If that isn't slavery, I don't know what is.
No man should be used as another mans slave. Isn't it time the slackers earned their own keep like the rest of us? Why do we keep voluntarily supporting the politicians who steal from us through out voluntary taxes? Why give them any more than we absolutely have to? It's self defeating.
Interesting article.
Personally, I think Rand was deliberate when she made her characters as they were for the sake of the novel. There were very few "gray-shades" to be found because she wanted to paint a stark contrast between good and evil.
In a civilized, certainly Christian society, we recognize that there are needy among us who require some help. Most of us know this, and are more than willing to offer care. But I question your "human nature" reflections on altruism. In its base form, human nature is to look out for one's own self first, before others. We are social beings, but when pressed into a "your life or mine" situation--especially if I have no connection to you otherwise--my life will come first.
People do move beyond the pure Objectivism expressed in Rand's novels...because our lives are not novels. Once we go out into the real world, with jobs and families, we realize that compromises are sometimes made, particularly when it comes to raising children. But we recognize that AS was a fictional work, it was not meant as gospel! Reasonable people can read Rand and say, "yes, she makes some good points and generally I agree with her," without completely transforming their lives into a model of Francisco D'Anconia.
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