“Who is John Galt?”
Ayn Rands book Atlas Shurgged sold over 200,000 copies last year and sales are increasing. A recent report posted here on FR stated that over 8 percent of Americans have read the book and this number is growing.
In 1993, my family and I attended Dan's Bake Sale in Fort Collins, CO. Our youngest was barely out of a stroller. We arrived at the Bake sale (and truly, it was an amazing event, from the moment we left our home in a Tioga), and cameras came right up to us, and press chatted with us. We were the California Bay Area Conservatives. At that time, it was shocking news that ANYONE from the San Francisco Bay Area "might" be a conservative; but there we were. Me in my pro-life T-shirt, hubby in his Christ-The-King T-shirt; all our children in fine fettle. And there we were showing up on a Tom Brokow segment - to the amazement and discontent of those we knew around the nation.
We came back sporting a "WHO IS JOHN GALT? ASK RUSH" bumpersticker.
I would get locked in by other cars at parking lots. In stopped commute traffic, people were jetting out of their cars to talk to me on highways. Every where, people were in shock, rushing to meet us. At times it was really unnerving, that look of desperation in the eyes of fellow conservatives as they'd excitedly introduce themselves, and long shake my hand. "We are here! We may be white, we may be Republican, we may even be ugly, BUT THANK GOD WE ARE HERE!"
I carried url addresses, email addresses, flyers, network contacts, phone numbers with me, all carefully organized to give to folks. lol! These were the early years. The keying, the nails in the tires, the smashed windows -- well, those came in the later years.
No one told me to do this, or even instructed me back then. I just could NOT bear knowing so many people felt so disenfranchised and alone. I hated the chimera, lies, and thefts of liberals and their liberalism.
Individuals, Constitutionalists, Conservatives needed to know each other, and stand together. We had been divided by liberalism through our daily practices of accountability and self-responsibility -- each of us living our lives and meeting our obligations, but we'd been picked apart and each made as "targets" by liberals. We needed to band together.
And so, things began to happen. In my area.
Stock, I read "Atlas Shrugged" when I was 12. I didn't understand a lot of it. So, I read it again when I was 15. I understood more. And through the years, I'd re-read the book. In the early 90s, my husband was horribly shaken up by "things" happening in our locale, and to him. He needed a break. And we knew we needed to leave the area. I sent him to Montana on a break/look-see adventure, and I packed "Atlas Shrugged" into his luggage.
He began reading it. About his 4th night in Montana, he was in Helena. His mind was blown. This good man was having a major epiphany. Things he hadn't understood. Things which his fine, intellectual brain could not piece together, and which burdened his heart became clear, and through reading "Atlas Shrugged".
Well, we did try to sell our home and move to Montana. Real Estate in CA fell into the toilet and no one was selling real estate. The next 10 years of what we went through, what we fought, what we witnessed and endured, is the stuff of novels.
We knew then, as we know now, God wanted us exactly right where we were, for His reasons. And looking back? Yep, He was right.