Reflections From a Murky Pond

We Are Fast Approaching The Stage Of The Ultimate Inversion

The fearsome but wise words come from Ayn Rand’s essay, “The Nature Of Government” which is enclosed within The Virtue of Selfishness and, while they were written decades ago, they hold a bitter truth even today. Indeed, it may well be that Rand’s words are more true today than they were some 50 years ago when she penned them.

America does seem to be fast approaching the stage where the government can do or refuse to do whatever it wishes while we, the People must beg its permission for any action or even inaction that we would contemplate undertaking.

Remember, while it is true that men can only govern by the consent of the governed, to rule only requires brute force and a willingness to use. As America’s government seems to no longer care about our consent, how long will it be before they take power and rule through open force?

Tags: America | Ayn Rand | Books & Reading | Freedom | Government | History | Law | Politics | Tyranny

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 2nd, 2013 at 10:15 am and is filed under Politics. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Ayn Rand, one of the few staunch literary defenders of individual liberty and robust American capitalism and excellence, had much to say about the goals of the Leftists, these Liberals and Progressives:

The goal of the “liberals”—as it emerges from the record of the past decades—was to smuggle this country into welfare statism by means of single, concrete, specific measures, enlarging the power of the government a step at a time, never permitting these steps to be summed up into principles, never permitting their direction to be identified or the basic issue to be named. Thus, statism was to come, not by vote or by violence, but by slow rot—by a long process of evasion and epistemological corruption, leading to a fait accompli.

— Ayn Rand
Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal

I happen to disagree with her. Insofar as I can see, statism is the chosen methodology of the Liberals and Progressives, not the goal. A giant, all-encompassing, intrusive government is merely, to them, a necessary means to an end.

There goal is to have a “state” without national identity, pride, or identifiable culture where all of the people’s sundry needs and most desires are either fulfilled or guaranteed by the government. They wish to bring about an egalitarian Utopia where merit and circumstance have no bearing upon one’s material success.

Statism, despite Rand’s assertion, is just the only means by which the Leftists believe they can bring about this unnatural state of being. They simple need a despotic central force to enact and maintain their fantasy of a neo-Socialist, fully managed society.

Tags: America | Ayn Rand | Books & Reading | Capitalism | Leftists | Liberals | Politics | Progressives | Socialism | Statism | Statists

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 22nd, 2012 at 11:43 am and is filed under Politics. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

In Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged there was a hidden refuge in a valley of Colorado where the people of ability had retreated to after relinquishing participation in American society. It was aptly nicknamed “Galt’s Gulch” by its inhabitants, though it was more properly named “Mulligan’s Valley” since it was the property of Michael “Midas” Mulligan, a banker and one of the first strikers to heed John Galt’s call.

The basic premise is that the United States has degenerated into an authoritarian, quasi-Marxist state, strangling business, innovation, and personal liberty in favor of an non merit-based egalitarian result. John Galt responds by convincing the productive and innovative people – the “Men of the Mind” – to withdraw from society and take their skills and visions with them, “stopping the motor of the world” by withdrawing the “minds” that drive society’s growth and productivity.

John Galt is Prometheus who changed his mind. After centuries of being torn by vultures in payment for having brought to men the fire of the gods, he broke his chains — and he withdrew his fire — until the day when men withdraw their vultures.

— Francisco d’Anconia
Atlas Shrugged, Part II, Chapter V

One thing that strikes me as odd – and more than a little frustrating – is that both Rand’s supporters and detractors view this as a Dystopian future, as if it wasn’t, in pragmatic effect, already well underway.

Ayn Rand’s Future Is Now

In the real world Galt’s Gulch aka Mulligan’s Valley isn’t some concealed refuge in Colorado; it’s the global marketplace and the Third World labor pool. Business leaders are finding Galt’s Gulch in many places outside of America’s borders and jurisdiction.

• Decline of Manufacturing
  America no longer produces much domestically. Over the last 60 years there’s been slightly over of 66% drop in employment within factories inside the US and a commensurate rise in off-shoring manufacturing to places such as Mexico and China.
• Decline of Innovation
  Scientific and technological advances are also, more and more, coming from overseas. Companies are now paying scientists in China, India, Singapore, and other foreign lands to perform R & D instead of using more expensive domestic scientists and research facilities.

The motor is already stopping. Corporations, faced with the inability to compete globally with less restrictive regimes and with lower order economies while using domestic labor and facilities, are already “striking” and moving more and more of their operations outside of America.

Tags: America | Atlas Shrugged | Ayn Rand | Books & Reading | Capitalism | Dystopia | Economics | Freedom | Labor | Labor Unions | Liberty | Politics | Socialism | Society | Statism | Taxes

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 1st, 2011 at 6:31 pm and is filed under Books & Reading, Politics. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.