Synthstuff - music, photography and more...

Going Galt - it is time?

The Insta-Wife has been conducting an informal political survey:

Ask Dr. Helen: Is It Time to Go John Galt?
As Ayn Rand foresaw, productive Americans are fed up with supporting the unproductive and may not take it anymore.

I recently wrote a post on my blog asking readers to react to the creeping socialism and expectation in our society that those who are productive must pay for the cost of our society:

Do you ever wonder after dealing with all that is going on with the economy and the upcoming election if it�s getting to be time to �go John Galt�? For those of you who have never read Ayn Rand�s Atlas Shrugged, the basic theme is that John Galt and his allies take actions that include withdrawing their talents, �stopping the motor of the world,� and leading the �strikers� (those who refuse to be exploited) against the �looters� (the exploiters, backed by the government).

Perhaps the partisan politics we are dealing with now is really just a struggle between those of us who believe in productivity, personal responsibility, and keeping government interference to a minimum, and those who believe in the socialistic policies of taking from others, using the government as a watchdog, and rewarding those who overspend, underwork, or are just plain unproductive.

Obama talks about taking from those who are productive and redistributing to those who are not � or who are not as successful. If success and productivity is to be punished, why bother? Perhaps it is time for those of us who make the money and pay the taxes to take it easy, live on less, and let the looters of the world find their own way.

My question to readers is, what are some ways to �go John Galt� (legally, of course) � that is, should productive people cut back on what they need, make less money, and take it easy so that the government is starved for funds, or is there some other way of making a statement?

The comments to the question posed ranged from �It�s not time to �go John Galt� yet� to �Cut off the money!� to everything in between.

What follows are 140 comments -- some banal, some well worth reading. This comment really hits home:

I have generally been a Bush supporter, but when the first stimulus package passed, and he went on TV encouraging people to go out and spend the stimulus checks on more Chinese rubber dog shit, he lost me. Don�t we have enough stuff? Any responsible person who received one of those checks should have saved it, invested it, or used it to pay down debt. Assume they invested it in a mutual fund; they would still have some of the money left, rather than some stupid toy (probably made in a foreign country) gathering dust in the garage. With the government saying �take this money out and blow it�, I was shocked over how far off track we have gone. Bush�s advice to the People on what to do with those checks is probably what pushed me over the edge.

This recession is exactly what we need to bring some reality back into the picture. We have raised a generation, maybe two generations, of selfish, whining crybabies � both in and out of Government � whose primary business is trying to take money from others without providing any meaningful long term service to society. They need to be brought to their knees and shown the facts of life. As everyone starts to get it, as cities and hopefully even states go bankrupt, they will be forced to re-think just what is important. When the public sector gets it, to the point that many public sector employees and retirees see their benefits dramatically cut; when it will no longer be possible for a 20-year civil servant to retire at 90% of his salary, and those that already have retired have their dole funds cut off by public sector bankruptcies, I will reach nirvana.

The sooner we reach that point, the better. When we do, I will get back in the game with gusto, knowing that for the first time in my life I am operating from a solid base.

What he said... Posted by DaveH at October 26, 2008 8:00 PM