They Have A Lot Of Galt
Last week Scorpio had a post that went to the heart of the situation: Have they actually read it? Asking me to accept that Limbaugh actually read a 1,000 page science fiction novel is really pushing the envelop of disbelief.
Then Badtux located a compare and contrast between Atlas Shrugged and the Lord of the Rings. I would note that there is another important difference: JRR Tolkien knew he was writing fiction.
Perhaps in the creation of an alternate world for a novel, some fall into the trap of believing that they can will their world into existence. Unfortunately such things only occur in fiction and the minds of certain individuals.
Ayn Rand [actually, Alisa Zinov’yevna Rosenbaum] called her “philosophy” Objectivism in a clear violation of the dictionary, as it is totally subjective. When you consider selfishness a virtue and are dependent on “rational self-interest” in pursuit of laissez-faire capitalism, it is quite probable that you will end up with economic collapse, as Alan Greenspan learned to the detriment of us all. Objectively this is another utopian dream, which is why it is filed under science fiction [set in the near future with a perpetual motion engine, it’s science fiction].
Consider: both Noam Chomsky and William F. Buckley think Objectivism is snake oil. That should settle the matter because, objectively, both men would be considered prime candidates for “Galt’s Gulch” based on their intellects alone, and their politics are the end points of the spectrum of rational political positions in the US. Anyone to the left of Chomsky or the right of Buckley really needs their meds adjusted.
It is typical that college-aged people dream about alternate worlds, but when the Chairman of the Federal Reserve doesn’t “grok” reality, things get really messy.
7 comments
Aliza Rosenbaum is definitely certifiable. Either that, or as her real name suggests, she most likely has an agenda, a purpose, for a certain group. 🙂 The book was garbage, but did serve a purpose. It served to show who the lunatics are.One of the prime nutcases being the blogger who took her name from the book, Pamela Geller (Atlas Shrugs). Like Michelle Malkin and so many of the rightwingnutcases many of whom, curiously, are closet *Israel apologists* (I’ll refrain from using the 3-letter descriptive word). Ie, they would much prefer you didn’t mention that. (Yeah, yeah… call me antisemite or whatever. Some people hate facts. I couldn’t care less *shrug*). That says a lot right there about agenda’s. And they screech about closet gay’s (which many of them are also, or are simply amoral and/or asexual). They must really loath themselves when looking in the mirror in the morning. It’s a real shame they don’t simply loath themselves, and therefore everyone else, to themselves. If they really want to help, they could do so easily by slashing an artery. But then, they are cowards also. *shrug* (or should that be *Atlas Shrugged*) 😆
Most kids that reach College age realise this World is now a big cesspit and so it’s natural for them to fantasize about other Worlds. Sadly, many will continue to do so until they finally grow up and accept adulthood. Unfortunately, for many, that would be sometime after 60 or 5 seconds before they die, right after ‘oh sh*t’. 🙂 Some will go on to fully embrace Bizzaro World and become the Aliza Rosenbaum’s, the Rush Limbaugh’s, the Michelle Malkins, the Bernard Goldberg’s, the Bill O’Reilly’s, the Pamela Geller’s, the Glenn Beck’s, etc, ad nauseam… (The list is very long).
As Stephen Colbert put it recently: “”Reality has a well-known liberal bias.”” 😉 😀
I agree with Brad Sherman’s recent statement also:
Yep. 🙂
Where are the Trolls, Bryan… there should be some Trolls! In my blogging day’s (2002-2006) we had some real Trolls (of course, being Trolls and lacking in any form of reality- or fact-based thinking or honesty, they were soon defeated). Still, they were an amusement for awhile, but as a whole, very monotonous. *sigh* I bet LadyMin remembers some good Troll stouches we had on Loaded Mouth! 😀
But where are the trolls?
Quick, send in the trolls.
Don’t bother, they’re here.
(With apologies to Stephen Sondheim).
The Trolls are busy licking their wounds under their bridges, it seems. I haven’t had a good troll infestation in, like, ages. I guess they’re afraid that penguins eat trolls :-).
As for the “going galt” morons, have you ever noticed that it’s not people like you and I, who actually produce real “stuff” in our economy, who talk about that sort of thing? No, no, it’s always our “masters of the universe” who produce nothing but bull feces who are into that kind of nonsense. It is to laugh. “Going Galt” is what you get when you get a balding, middle-aged marketing person with a pot-belly in front of a mirror and what he sees is a younger Harrison Ford, a swashbuckling hero of the universe. When actually what he is, is a schlub who hasn’t done a thing in his life except come up with new ways to trick the rubes into buying whatever snake-oil his current employer is selling…
– Badtux the Laughing Penguin
Badtux´s last blog post..Still following Krugman vs. DeLong
The funding of trolls ended with the election, so they went looking for a new con to make some money without actually doing anything.
Fallenmonk has one, but he too will fade away unless people start clapping. The last one I had was a religious nut case objecting to my calling people who were convicted of murder, murderers, because they were acting to “preserve the lives of unborn children”.
People tried communes/ashrams in the 1960s and 70s. They didn’t work because some people who joined them didn’t work. I don’t know how these people expect to live if they don’t know how to grow food. Owning a gun doesn’t make you a hunter.
While having Chomsky and Buckley in a commune would be amusing, I doubt they know how to set the table, much less cook a meal. Hunting, gathering, and farming are hard work that require skills that most of the people talking about “Galt” don’t have. The fact that Galt’s perpetual motion machine was used to generate electricity pretty much tells me that Alisa didn’t know much about survival. Building electrical appliances requires a lot of infrastructure that doesn’t scale down to a commune.
They also don’t seem to understand that finance is not a requirement for a community as barter works on a small scale. All of the Wall Street con artists play with money, they don’t create anything. Poker is a lot more interesting than the stock market, and 52 cards can be used in a lot of interesting ways.
Just round up the entire crew and ship them down to Gitmo. Rename it Galtanamo or Galt’s Gulch, and stock it with Monopoly games and MREs. Then get some local bankers and bookkeepers to take their places. Start breaking the behemoths into bite-sized chunks, and then we can get back to business.
Oh, yes, eliminate the limited liability of corporations – they want laissez-faire capitalism, let them find out what that really means.
I couldn’t agree more with either of you (Badtux & Bryan).
I used to absolutely love roughing it when I was younger. I hunted rabbit, wild pigs, I fished, I looked for wild veggies, roots and berries etc. I learned that snake really does kinda taste like chicken. 🙂 I was a Cub & then a Scout. My grandfather taught me how to grow veggies, look after chooks for the eggs (and when a chook stopped laying, it became dinner), I even learned to milk a cow, shear a sheep. In the military, I did a 6 mth survival course (not the standard 2 week grunts course). I was dumped in the middle of the Simpson Desert with minimal supplies and had to survive for two Months for example. Many don’t make it.
I’ve often said to LadyMin that I’d love to find a nice cosy cave near a decent river to live (at least we don’t have to worry about bears here). 😉 But I couldn’t do it on my own any more.
Even the Amish are succumbing. I believed they would ultimately survive the new holocaust. They know how to live on the land with few modern conveniences. But the current generation are trouble. They want the mod con’s. The crime rate (including murder) have been increasing over the past decade or so, many have left the Amish communities, and the Elders have been relaxing the rules on such things as electricity and appliances etc. If the Amish can’t do it… who can? A real shame.
In Australia, barter trade was a legitimate payment system, until Howard brought in the GST. How do you pay 10% tax when you trade a dozen eggs for a loaf of bread? How do you even enforce it? The rural communities of course told Howard to drop dead (sadly, he didn’t). I could have walked into a local store and offered to trade something for a bottle of milk, and you’d be surprised how many would have accepted that before the 90’s. 🙂 The only point would be the value of the goods I wanted to trade. 🙂
Oh well… Those “Good ol’ days’ are definitely long gone. And things *WERE* much better then. *sigh* This generation have no real clue, and they will suffer the consequences for it.
The thing about barter is that both sides get something. When I was a kid we would never buy shrimp, we would trade oysters, fish, or crabs for shrimp when the boats came in. Everything had to be fresh or there was no trade.
You could get veggies and just about anything else to eat with a few hours worth of work in the bayou.
That will come back, but the abundance that supported it is no longer there. I wouldn’t eat a Gulf oyster on a bet after Katrina, and the shrimp are disappearing. We have have made it hard to live off the land, by turning too much of it into lawns.
If you can’t live without electricity, you don’t know how to live. If you can’t trade locally without money, you are in rough shape.
There is one Amish tradition that we should use now. We should shun the “banksters”. Isolate them from real society, which is apparently what they want. We don’t need them as much as they need us.
I just read this interesting interview at C&L.
Bill Moyers talks with an actual socialist for an honest perspective on Obama
Added to the increasing attacks on the immigrants, are the increasing (and extremely stupid) attacks on Canada, like this bit of typical rightwing stupidity:
Fox News’ Greg Gutfield apologizes to Canada after belittling their soldiers
I assume there is an agenda here… and I also assume it’s insane… but I can’t figure out what it is most likely to be. There are so many possibilities.
And how come FOX is allowed to get away with stalking, ambushing and even attacking civilians?
Fox News’ ambush crews: A flagrant abuse of media power
O’Reilly should have been locked up long ago. He’s surely broken enough laws by now.
Until Americans start demanding that these morons and their owners be held accountable and force them to behave, things are going to get a lot worse, not better. Ignoring them never was, and never will be, an option.
Rupert Murdock has always been such a gentile individual 😈
He hires people who share his views and use his methods. Attacking “the other” is a standard technique used by fascist regimes everywhere. “We” are never at fault, it is always “them”.
They ignore reality and facts to derive the result that corresponds with their prejudices in “Rupert World”. He will probably have to make another apology, this time to the nation of Canada.