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 ...
The end comes within hours after the next dollar of debt produces negative GDP. Exponential math, systemic failure.
Atlas doesn’t get to shrug. Atlas is going to have to fight. If Atlas believes anything else Atlas is engaging in wishful thinking.
The shrug must come first. It’s the fruits of the shrug which will push the leftist even further, to the tipping point for the rest of us. When the producers stop producing and consumers stop consuming, the leftist will become more desperate and more totalitarian. We can’t fix this mess until enough people realize the situation and collectively decide to do what is necessary.
Galt is the only way to kill the beast. I hope that's happening. It'll be a rough ride, but the rewards in the end will be worth it.
Many thanks!
FReepers are the best!
Ditto. Too many people WANT everything without having to do something to earn it. In order for that to happen, there has to be slaves. Today, the U.S. tax payers are being used as slaves to the world and they're figuring it out.
“collectivism’s ultimate failure wherever tried”
those that think socialism has always failed don’t understand its purpose
Hopefully never. Despite her facile, repetitive writing style, Ayn Rand seems to be one of those authors that people discuss more than they read. Has the author read the book?
The result of Atlas Shrugging (or Going Galt, or however you want to put it) was that civilization collapsed and billions of people died. Rand never could align several of her issues, and as such, there’s a fair amount of incoherency in her books.
See, while Rand idolizes all the titans of industry (which she supposes must all think like her in the end), she depicts them as fatalist cowards. Rather than fight back and fend off the nanny-state, she depicts them as all retreating to a “Eureka”-like village, adopting the tactics of the labor movement she so abhors. They never do step back in when they declare, “see, you guys do need us!” (Although the book does include a 150-page rehash of all of its ideas, “This is John Galt.”) Instead, they watch billions of people die while they retreat to an existence closer to Rousseau’s ideal than Edison’s, Reagan’s or Locke’s. In some ways, it’s a fantastically better written companion piece to “The Turner Diaries.”
Eddie is the character which most exposes Rand’s confusion. While the “heroine” Dagny Taggart is going off exploring her sexuality with three different lovers, it’s Eddie, not Dagny, who literally keeps the trains running, demonstrating leadership, intelligence and creativity. Rand actually details his fantastic role in quite some detail. But because Eddie isn’t the ideologue that Dagny is, the reader never gets his point-of-view in the literary sense. At the end, he’s left outside the Eureka-like village.
To be used as a slave, or not to be used as a slave? That is the question.
You do know that the answer to that question was to die, don’t you?
Never.
Atlas has bills to pay and a family to feed. If he shrugs, they get evicted and/or starve.
One of the things I always noticed about Galt’s Gulch and Rand’s heroes - there are never any kids... Maybe they’re not allowed to be seen OR heard... or maybe she forgot completely about them.
Well, let's face it. Our options are limited. Either way, we lose. Think Joseph Stalin.
>>>>>>To be used as a slave, or not to be used as a slave? That is the question. <<<<<<
>>>>You do know that the answer to that question was to die, don’t you?<<<<
>>Well, let's face it. Our options are limited. Either way, we lose. Think Joseph Stalin. <<
To accept death while there are still battles left to be fought is cowardice, so yes, I'll say it:
Ayn Rand is to capitalism what David Koresh was, at least in legend, to religion.
For those not familiar with what we’re discussing:
When I said, “You do know the answer to that question was to die, don’t you?” I was referring to Spartacus. Ayn Rand did not advocate suicide. However, I would suggest that for these industry titans to withdraw from the world and its implementation of their technology is analogous to suicide for those who struggled so hard to prosper.
Probably what will have more impact than Galt will be when the real producers realize and understand: The Pareto principle (also known as the 80-20 rule).
In some organizations and maybe society, the top 10 of producers may produce 90% of the results.
When Zer0’s ‘punish the so called rich bs’ starts to impact these people/high producers, they take steps to protect themselves and their families from being pillaged and raped to provide a lifestyle for the non producers.
There will be a double hit on these producers in states like California as they are taxed more and more to pay for the illegals in our society and the left wing drones.
We who have been pulling this welfare wagon full of lazy bums are fed up.
We are retiring, cutting back...as we can.
The final straw for many of us is when the lazy crooks complain that we are not pulling fast enough.
Now, they can try to pull their own wagon without us.
No worries...the graphic is signed. ;o)
Thank you for the link!
ah! a voice of reason
Thank you ...
The Republican conservative party has got to grow and change from being a bunch of old pale, white haired men that only allows a candidate to emerge and have a turn at being President ... only after he has paid his dues for years,... which has prov en to be as losing policy.
THEY MUST GO FORWARD WITH YOUNGER STRONG CANDIDATES WITH TRUE CONSERVATIVE BASIS. Otherwise we are whistling past the graveyard.
One thing the democrats do that works, is get behind who ever their candidate is and supports him. They will vote for a yellow dog ... truly, if he were their candidate.
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