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.
I’m not going after Social Security recipients. That’s the last thing I’d want to do. I was making an ironic post about ideological purity.
It would appear you've not read Atlas Shrugged. Somewhere in the middle there's a scene in which one of the good guys presents another with a bar of gold taken from the looters. It's offered as a partial restoration of the wealth taken from him in taxes.
Rand was fully entitled to take Social Security and a lot more. If some pirate had seized a US govt shipment of gold and given her a portion, she would have accepted it proudly and been able to tell you exactly why -- while standing on one foot.
I did not vote for Obama because I didn’t want him to be President. I didn’t want McCain to be President, either, but he might have been better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick; at least, there was a chance.
However, that is irrelevant. Voting is irrelevant, in fact, to the point I am making. A Christian’s duty of self-surrender cannot be delegated: it has to be personal, deliberate, and motivated by gratitude and love.
You are so right and the fact is that it wouldn’t take that many. The way our tax code is set up if the top 5% just stopped working and earning income and lived off of their accumulated wealth it would come crashing down in short order. But the most productive among us live to produce. If they stopped working they would die and the Altruists know it. It is their own virtues that they use as the weapon against them.
Rand got John Galt wrong.
The communist party of China has taken over a lot of production, due to one aspect: COST.
The communist party of China has the numbers, and the difference in wages, to win this contest. If we continue this same tactic of allowing them to take over.
We must. Must get aggressive.
We also must, start playing defense.
As well as offense. Both defense AND offense are critical.
Now.
Ain’t gonna happen. The Communist “Long March Through the Institutions” has been so successfully destructive of our nation that it is now only possible to turn this around when they have done all they can peacefully, and people revolt, either from the Left or the Right.
When that time comes (soon? . . . . ), I rather hope we have a George Washington than a John Galt.
Few realize the dollar does not float arbitrarily. The dollar has a declared standard of value: mundane labor. Thanks to the minimum wage laws, a dollar is worth 8.28 minutes of simple work which pretty much anybody can do with negligible training.
bingo.
Rand was very prophetic despite her atheism.
She absolutely nails faulty socialist un-logic to the wall.
But objectivism as a personal philosophy in approaching life?
Completely incompatible with the christian message.
Notice the childlessness of Dagney.
And how Dagney manages to have rip-roarin’ rolls in the hay without the nasty consequence of pregnancy.
It is very easy in fictionland to live for oneself and no one else when the laws of nature need not apply.
The continuing search for what doesn’t exist.
There is no hero who can “turn things around”.
There is no brilliant policy which will change the economic situation.
Only time can heal the USA and the world.
Keep Obama and the time will be longer, and the suffering will be worse.
American rank and file citizens must face facts, and many don’t want to face facts yet.
The entire world is in debt that cannot be serviced and must be deleveraged. The leadership is delaying the inevitable through various extend and pretend policies which are all just delaying tactics.
This situation requires a depression. We are having one, in slow motion due to the policies of those who control the financial levers. They prefer slow motion to extensive rioting and harsh deflation followed by inflation.
They will get all of the above anyway. There is no easy way out.
I hope I can at least be "on your team." "St. Tax-Chick of the Complete Horde, and *Companions*, Flamboyant and Martyrs."
It has come back to bite them in the butt because now the government is telling the churches what they can and can't do.
I don't believe they'd die. They wouldn't even have to stop for very long.
But if I have to die for my country, I'll take it on the porch rocker now, rather than in the coming chaos of a full meltdown, catastrophe, martial law, confiscation, seizure, glass-busting, tank-rolling rodeo. Imagine that, and it makes early retirement and porch warming look easy.
The value of the US$ can be measured in several other more meaningful ways.
The standard most can see and feel is gasoline. The price of gasoline has not risen, the value of the US$ measured in gallons of gasoline has declined.
The same is true when measured against an ounce of silver or gold.
In the current congressional mindset, the minimum wage actually lags. That is the inflation of wages is lagging the devaluation of the US$. The current minimum wage acknowledges rather exacerbates (leads) economic inflation.
Hmmm...you haven't read the book, have you?
He spent his annual vacation at Galt's Gulch. The rest of the year, he was at his job at Taggart Transcontinental, and spending his leisure time working on his projects at his dingy little apartment.
I try to personally, legally, starve the beast. I try to avoid anything with an attached tax, or find a way to pay less. I will not voluntarily be used as a slave simply because the self serving politicians need my sweat equity to buy votes for themselves.
I by used, make my own, swap services for services. I buy used cars (less consumer tax) and drive them until they die (I call them "disposable"). We do our own car repairs. Books on car repair for any vehicle are easily accessible.
I use food products to make my own cleaning supplies as much as possible. Food is non-taxable. A search engine will offer ideas if anyone else is interested.
I don't buy prepared food. It's taxable. I cook my own. If we travel, we go in groups (gas taxes) and pack food for the trip (Chic Fil A is the only exception to the rule right now) .
I buy from E-Bay, Amazon PERSONAL sellers, flea markets (all non-taxable for now).
I prefer non electric items, because why pay the extra taxes on the electric bill? Besides, with the economic situation today, tomorrow there may not be electricity available.
After awhile, this becomes more of a game and a lifestyle. Not only does it help us and not the politicians, it gives us something more productive to do than sit in front of a TV all day, whine about taxes, and simply pay.
If every tax slave in the country tried their best to avoid attached taxes, even if just a little, the beast would be left with very little to eat.
We can survive without the governments money, but the government can't survive without ours.
In Atlas Shrugged John Galt just made a collapsing system collapse faster so it can be rebuilt in his way. That's the Cloward-Piven strategy with a right turn at the end rather than a left turn.
No offense, but bullcrap.
Utter bullcrap.
There is one way out, and one way out only. PRODUCE.
As much as possible. Government intervention is defeat.
Buy American. Build American. Protect American.
To live for others can mean many different things. Did you read AS? Do you want to live your life to please them? to get their approval? What if their desires are enslavement? Slaves live for others - others enjoyment and profit. To be a Christian is to live for Christ, not for approval of the world.
I was going to engage, but on second thought your usual muscular argument should stand naked on its merits. :)
(Anyway I’m not even sure you are replying to the correct post!)
It did work in the real world. Look at the success of this country. Now you see it being destroyed by “trying to balance Altruism and individualism”. Don’t you see that they are incompatible. It’s either one or the other. Capitalism and the free market, private property and free speech can not exist under the Altruist morality. And as the moral code of Altruism comes to be practiced more fully as it is today you see all of these things being destroyed. We are not made for each other. We are social beings but not in the way it is preached in our society. We are created as individuals. Every man is an island. There is nothing wrong with helping people and being kind to others and giving money to those who are struggling, so long as it is voluntary. But if you accept the premise that you exist to serve others, that it is your duty, then what objections can you have when you are taxed at a higher rate or your property is taken and given to someone else? Really. Objectivism will work precisely because it is based on the real world and on Human nature. Look at the Declaration of Independence and you see Objectivism so eloquently stated in a single paragraph. This country was founded on the principles of Objectivism but from the very start it was infected with Altruism and as has happened all throughout Human history the majority have chosen to follow that path and take a look at the result: Barack Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank, Hillary Clinton, Tim Geitner, Chuck Schumer, George W. Bush. How about Social Security, Medicaid, Welfare, Food Stamps, Obamacare, The war on Poverty, The minimum wage, the National Labor Relations board, the EPA, the Green Energy Initiative, Farm Subsidies, Ethanol subsidies, the National Endowment for the Arts, NPR, Affirmative action, Slavery, Jim crow laws, racism, multi-culturalism, political correctness and the list goes on and on. All of these evils are based on the moral code of Altruism. The basic premise that a man’s life is not his property but belongs to the state or his brothers or God. That he has no right to exist except to serve others.
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