Posted on 01/14/2009 10:35:20 AM PST by oldtimer2
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Bailout
By Joseph Lawler on 1.13.09
In a recent Wall Street Journal opinion piece, Stephen Moore highlighted the parallels between today's economic events and those depicted in Ayn Rand's classic Atlas Shrugged.
"Many of us who know Rand's work have noticed that with each passing week, and with each successive bailout plan and economic-stimulus scheme out of Washington, our current politicians are committing the very acts of economic lunacy that 'Atlas Shrugged' parodied in 1957," Moore wrote.
Point taken: Rand was eerily prescient in predicting the encroachment of big government during this crisis. Then again, it doesn't take Nostradamus to predict that eventually government will go awry.
In fact the ultimate riff on government came out roughly 1,957 years (give or take about 33 years) before Atlas Shrugged, when someone, probably a clever proto-Objectivist, quipped, "Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's," as if to warn us that eventually the government is going to do what it wants to do, and the rest of us are better off worrying about more important things.
No, if you are looking for the most complete forecast of today's economic and political turmoil in 20th century literature you will have to look beyond Rand's one-dimensional economic vignettes to a work of scope and sophistication: Douglas Adams's all-encompassing masterpiece, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
The part of the essay that most describes the last election is when it is stated that lizards win elections. The question is "why do we vote for lizards?"
The answer is: "If we did not vote for a lizard, the wrong lizard might win."
The only hope we have is in the last two words of the essay: Don't panic.
The economy has been demolished to make way for a hyperspace bypass.
And my advise to Obama: Go stick your head in a pig!
America is at that awkward stage.
It is too late to work within the system,
but too early to shoot the bastards.
- Claire Wolfe
“The economy has been demolished to make way for a permanent Democratic majority.”
Fixed. :(
See tagline.
The answer to the bailout problem is 42.
http://www.flixxy.com/political-systems.htm
Watch this video, listen closely, THIS explains why our Founding Fathers gave us a Republic and not a Democracy and what can go wrong in a Republic once it gets too complacent and finds out that “government can vote itself pay raises.” (Not the term used, but similar.)
The term “Democracy” is NOT in the Constitution or Bill of Rights. Or Declaration, either, if memory serves me correctly.
similar, related:
‘Atlas Shrugged’: From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years
Wall Street Journal | January 9, 2009 | Stephen Moore
Posted on 01/09/2009 8:33:57 AM PST by reaganaut1
http://freerepublic.com/focus/news/2161624/posts
Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged”: Novel or Prophecy?
PoliGazette | 1/11/09 | Marc Moore
Posted on 01/13/2009 5:06:02 AM PST by NewJerseyJoe
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2163690/posts
Francisco’s ‘Money’ Speech from “Atlas Shrugged”
Atlas Shrugged | 1957 | Ayn Rand
Posted on 01/03/2009 9:23:57 AM PST by Entrepreneur
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2158115/posts
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