Posted on 06/19/2014 3:31:49 PM PDT by dignitasnews
In Ayn Rand’s prophetic 1950’s novel Atlas Shrugged, a corrupt and collectivist government has taken over a futuristic America, eerily similar to our government today. John Galt, the industrialist hero and protagonist, takes the few able “men of the mind” away from the corrupt society in order to eventually collapse the system so the government can no longer “loot’’ from these few men with the ability to produce and hold things together.
When finally captured later in the novel, the government is so desperate to help save their crumbling system that they offer Galt the position of Economic Dictator as a last resort, which he swiftly declines to take. Because the Washington bureaucrats are so used to making conniving deals with people obsessed with power, they can’t understand why Galt would refuse their offer. One of the corrupt leaders, Wesley Mouch, who is pushing Galt to support the government’s efforts, defiantly states that, “The John Galt Plan will reconcile all conflicts. It will protect the property of the rich and give a greater share to the poor. It will cut down the burden of your taxes and provide you with more government benefits. It will lower prices and raise wages. It will give more freedom to the individual and strengthen the bonds of collective obligations. It will combine the efficiency of free enterprise with that of a planned economy’” (Atlas Shrugged).
Most rational people can see that these ideas obviously conflict with one another. Taxes cannot be cut while government benefits are increased. Prices cannot be lowered while wages are simultaneously raised. In other words, you can’t have your cake and eat it too. Unfortunately, the central planners in Washington today have succeeded in promising that we can, in fact, have our cake and eat it too. What we are now experiencing is a Unicorn Empire, one all-powerful, centralized Government that promises all things to all people and delivers nothing equally.
When Obama sold the Affordable Care Act, aka, Obamacare, he promised that if we liked our doctor, we could keep our doctor. Period. He also promised that we would save $2,500 a year on insurance payments. Furthermore, it was argued that the quality of care would go up, that doctors were happy with the proposed health law, and that more people would have greater access to care.
Obviously, we know this to be untrue. When there is an increase in people who are able to use subsidized healthcare, there will be a shortage of doctors. Not all doctors will be able to provide the same services to the same people that they were before. When insurance companies are required to cover people with pre-existing conditions and offer more services to more people, they will be forced to raise their prices as a result. Though conservatives have been correct in all predictions about the healthcare law, most of the liberal media and academics have continued to blame this on the greed of insurance companies, rather than the regulations they are required to follow due to Obamacare.
In foreign policy, we have been told time and time again that we can achieve peace and strength through projected weakness. If we simply withdraw from the world, people will love us. If we simply cow tow to our enemies, they will respect us. If we let five murderous thugs in Gitmo go, they will stop attacking us. As we can see, the motto of strength through weakness has clearly proven to be false. Iraq is on fire, Putin has invaded much of the Ukraine, Libya is a disaster, and the majority of our enemies are more emboldened than ever before. Let it be understood, there is a difference between nation building, as the neocons have advocated, and projecting strength in the world. We do not need to intervene in every conflict, but we cannot win by appeasement either.
When it comes to illegal immigration, we are told that if we simply let 11-30 million illegal immigrants become citizens, the economy will get the boost it needs. Yet most of these immigrants are coming from second and third world nations, with little to no skilled work experience. It is obvious that they will take more from the government then they contribute. We are told that the way to increase jobs is to flood the labor market with more labor than there already is. This is another example of double speak that a child would be able to see through.
Radical egalitarianism, or the belief in collectivism and shared responsibility, is based on the flawed idea that it is better to have people be equally miserable than to have some people better off than others. It is unknown if leaders in Washington truly understand the harm they are doing to our country by imposing this idea upon us, but they understand that the only way to sell this vision to a country entrenched in individualistic traditions is to lie to us by saying the opposite of what they know to be true.
There is no magical formula to make everyone equally happy, equally peaceful, equally rich, equally successful, equally smart, and equally attractive. There is, however, a way to make everyone equally miserable by promising all things to all people. Ayn Rand often argued that when two ideas contradict each other, one of them has to be wrong. We cannot have our cake and eat it too. Unfortunately the message of prosperity through taxation, peace through weakness, and equality in outcomes lures even the most intelligent individuals to believe that radical egalitarianism is the same as equal opportunity.
By Lauren Thomas Dignitas News Service Contributor
Sources:
RedState AmericanThinker NationalReview
“OUT OF MY WAY. I have to sniff the emperor’s throne.” -MSNBCPBSCBSNPRNYTWPABCCNN
Exactly.
Let me tell you, if this was a unicorn empire, the Democrats would be dartboards.
Solar Empire or New Lunar Republic?
Agreed. That’s a great story!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.