Who is John Galt?

something I'm working on

Update:  I appreciate all the feedback here.  Please check out my response to Ollie's comments on the minimum wage.  Tonight I'll put up a post explaining why Ollie's impression of a conservative sounds, well, like an impression of a conservative.  In the meantime, this would be a great opportunity for some conservatives to defend the liberal position on minimum wages.  I know you can do it -- just be sure the word "exploit" appears in your comment. -- John Galt

Okay, so I said a few days ago that I was working on some rather philosophical stuff.  I'm kind of stuck on one, so I thought I'd throw out just the thesis, and see if you guys can contribute any of the analysis.

Since this thesis revolves around differences between liberals and conservatives, there are two possible responses.  I'll explain that in a second.

pravda op-ed

Drudge linked to this: A Russian ridiculing America's descent into Marxism.

The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been a record setting, not just in America's short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more then another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Wiemar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.

These past two weeks have been the most breath taking of all. First came the announcement of a planned redesign of the American Byzantine tax system, by the very thieves who used it to bankroll their thefts, loses and swindles of hundreds of billions of dollars. These make our Russian oligarchs look little more then ordinary street thugs, in comparison. Yes, the Americans have beat our own thieves in the shear volumes. Should we congratulate them?

promises, promises

Obama threatens (promises?) that if we don't get healthcare "done" this year, it won't get done.

Perhaps Mr. Obama figures that eventually a critical mass of Americans are about to start hearing the crashing noises of his fiscal trainwreck.  He knows he can only keep the monetary floodgates open for so long, and then he's going to have to surrender the keys to the printing presses.  If we don't get the impossible dreams started right away, Obama reasons, an awakened (and unemployed/indebted/impoverished/overtaxed) public isn't going to be quite as receptive to them later.

the inmates are running the asylum now

Obama's energy secretary is actually suggesting that we paint rooftops and roads white, claiming that the environmental impact would be the same as taking all of the world's cars off the road for 11 years.

This is just the tip of a big insanity iceberg, folks.  If you ever wanted to understand what the "separation of church and state" idea is all about, this is it: the federal government is being run according to the beliefs of a cult, pure and simple, and that cult's religious beliefs are about to be codified into everything you do.  Environmentalism is the new state religion.

testing obama

Eventually, North Korea or Iran is going to do something aggressive.  They're not going to simply brandish a weapon; they're going to use it -- or they're going to issue a demand along with the threat of using one. 

And when this happens, the libs and their media are going to hail the moment of Obama being tested, fulfilling Joe Biden's prophecy.

When that day comes, I want you to remember these days, right now -- when North Korea is testing nukes and launching missiles, and Iran is developing its own nukes, testing its own missiles, and conducting naval exercises in the Straits of Hormuz.  Because this is the real test -- these events.  Today.

The test will not be when we are staring down a nuclear threat.  When it gets to that point, we will have already failed.  Because the test is now, as Obama does nothing.

I couldn't have said it better

God knows I tried!

Money Versus Wealth

Every one of the trillion dollars Obama dumped on the American economy reduced the value of every dollar that was already here, because government stimulus bills create no wealth - they just force the economy to spend money in ways it didn’t want to. Not a single hour of productive labor is created when a big pile of deficit dollars is sucked out of the free market and expelled from Washington. Socialism creates the illusion of prosperity by forcing money to be spent in politically favored areas, then shining the media spotlight on where the money was spent… and hoping nobody notices all the choices that weren’t made, all the possibilities that were foreclosed, fading away in the darkness outside that spotlight.

chrysler dealers

It's been pointed out that the individual dealerships cost auto manufacturers nothing.  Since manufacturers sell only to dealerships, killing dealerships is like turning away customers.  Plus, "redundant" dealerships account for much of the flexibility in new car pricing -- dealers are more willing to negotiate when they know you can buy an identical vehicle at another dealership.  Closing dealerships will reduce competition and increase car prices.

It isn't clear why Chrysler would choose to downsize its dealer network.  But, seeing that the government is now heavily influencing these decisions, arbitrarily terminating dealer contracts may amount to a taking of property.

And it may not be so arbitrary: I wonder if anybody's looking into the selection process, to see if politics guided the selection of dealers whose contracts will not be renewed.  It will be interesting to see how it plays out in court, assuming that some of the dealers will band together to challenge this.

offline

I'm working on two rather lengthy, somewhat philosophical posts.  Please check back in a day or two.

finally equal

When I was a kid, I read Kurt Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron in a book.  I remember it seeming much longer then, maybe because Vonnegut's style was so inspiring that my mind eagerly filled in details he didn't actually provide.

You don't have to be much of an individualist to take away a lot from Harrison Bergeron.  I read it many years before I understood liberty, and when my eyes were finally opened it was as if there was one corner of the "big picture" in my mind that had already been filled in and illuminated for years -- the message I'd learned from Harrison Bergeron.

Here it is, all on one web page, a huge, brilliant story, told in perhaps all of two thousand words: Harrison Bergeron.

I post this link today because this Friday the movie, 2081, will premier at the Seattle International Film Festival.  There's a great high quality trailer at FinallyEqual.com, or you can watch the so-so YouTube version below.

But I urge you take a couple of minutes to read the short story before watching the trailer, if you have the willpower.

masonomics

H/T to Cafe Hayek: You already think this way; Arnold just explains it for you.