The John Galt Plan

Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions — who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage.

What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them — that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The John Galt Plan will reconcile all conflicts. It will protect the property of the rich and give a greater share to the poor. It will cut down the burden of your taxes and provide you with more government benefits. It will lower prices and raise wages. It will give more freedom to the individual and strengthen the bonds of collective obligations. It will combine the efficiency of free enterprise with the generosity of a planned economy.

The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works — whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. Those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account — to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day — because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.

Life imitates art

What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them — that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works — whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified.

Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. Those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account — to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day — because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.

Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control — and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous.

The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our gross domestic product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart — not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good. Patience, faith and unity — that's the recipe for progress.

We must stand united among ourselves and united with the rest of the world, as a great big happy family, all working for the good of all. We have found a leader who will beat the record of our richest and busiest past — it's his love for mankind that has made him come here — to serve you, protect you and take care of you! He has heard your pleas and has answered the call of our common human duty. Every man is his brother's keeper! No man is an island unto himself! And now you will hear his voice, now you will hear his own message! Ladies and gentlemen, John Galt — to the collective family of mankind!

The camera moved to Galt. He remained still for a moment. Then, with so swift and expert a movement that his secretary's hand was unable to match it, he rose to his feet, leaning sidewise, leaving the pointed gun momentarily exposed to the sight of the world — then, standing straight, facing the cameras, looking at all his invisible viewers, he said:

Get the hell out of my way!

---------

I defy you, without looking it up, to spot the point where I stopped quoting Tuesday's inauguration speech and started quoting from Mr. Thompson in Atlas Shrugged.

We live in interesting times.

Sometimes there's just not much to say

I suppose I could write about how I've finished watching Jericho Season 1 and admit that I have a richer understanding of just how great Season 2 is.

I could make a fuss about how the State seems to bounce back and forth between administrations loaded with Bushian statists and those loaded with Clintonian statists — although JN's entreaty to take the attitude of "State? I don't see a state" seems the most sane.

Somewhere along the way I could mention that I was ready to stop watching Heroes altogether — what's with all the darkness and graphic violence? — until Hiro singlehandedly rescued the show by visiting a comic book shop.

And I could write about how writing "refuse to be afraid" feels especially like spitting into the wind lately with the atmosphere of fear that so many folks are hellbent to generate in this world in recent weeks.

Speaking of which, I could write with some satisfaction that Netflix and Janus Films have made available a much, much improved translation of Akira Kurosawa's I Live in Fear (also known as Record of a Living Being) that erased my unhappiness with the unwatchable previous version and made this extremely potent film accessible to my non-Japanese-speaking self at last.

But I don't have much to say beyond those opening lines.

I think what I would most like to do is shrug. And that a) is something one must plan much more seriously than I have planned to date; b) is something one doesn't announce.

The frugal shrug

Browsing around today, I found the penultimate Freedom Outlaw posting, which linked to the "Frugalista Gulch" piece at Wendy McElroy's place.

I like the idea that living frugally is another way to resist the state ...

Consider an acquaintance of mine who buys the latest and fastest computer every year. Let's say it's a $2000 computer. Here, we pay combined sales taxes of 14%, so he has to fork over another $280 at the time of purchase. Now assume he's in a 33% tax bracket. He has to earn $3,403, to pay $2,280, to get $2000 worth of computer. To get that computer he has to pay $1,403 in taxes.

From my viewpoint, every year I don't buy a fancy new PC is a year I've kept $1,403 out of the rapacious maw of the State.

"Gulching in place." A great idea while building towards a more thorough shrug.

Time to shrug?

The incumbent president has moved to nationalize the banks. Pressure is being exerted to nationalize the auto industry. The incoming president has made nationalizing the insurance industry one of his priorities. All of this will be funded by confiscating more from the productive. This scenario is sounding awfully familiar, although in real life they nationalized the railroads a lot earlier in the process than in the book.

I'm just about ready to move to a gulch if I can find one who'll have me. Or maybe I can flip burgers until after the productive are welcome again.

Free market vs. The Empire

It's kind of interesting to have been reading about this for years, in places like Empire of Debt and its authors' Daily Reckoning site, but it's still a little startling to see it reported on the BBC:

"The era of American global leadership, reaching back to the Second World War, is over... The American free-market creed has self-destructed while countries that retained overall control of markets have been vindicated."

"In a change as far-reaching in its implications as the fall of the Soviet Union, an entire model of government and the economy has collapsed ...

It's a silly stretch for anyone to describe the American economy in recent years as "free market," but the gist of the observation is still compelling. Is this the end of the era of the American empire? Time will tell. The U.S. government's attempted solution is anything but free-market-friendly. Central planning and top-down micromanagement continue to be the hallmarks of the Washington, D.C., mentality. If anything, the new law is an attempt to consolidate imperial power even further.

The current situation doesn't feel like a defeat for free markets. It reminds me more of the climax of Atlas Shrugged. Did Congress just pass the Steel Unification Plan? How do I find that gulch?

Running with the mute-ants

OK, for a while I've been less prolific and wondering if I was just too busy with the day job and such, or if something else was going on. Then I found myself nodding in agreement with much of what Taran Jordan is experiencing ... some excerpts:

It’s an odd thing, but for months now, I have felt very little desire to speak out on issues, or get into debates with sheeple. Even, or maybe especially, about freedom ...

Now, too, when I hear of abuses, I don’t get het up with anger or outrage anymore either, the way I used to. (And it was that energy of fed-upness and violated justice that motivated a lot of my writing.) I do often feel for the victims, if true innocent victims they are.

But the feeling I now experience toward the perpetrators is a cross between indifference and quiet resistance. And I think it’s that quiet aspect that has me not talking or writing about my thoughts, concerns or plans.

It’s a struggle within, because one voice in my head says, “But these issues are vital and should get some exposure, and you can give them that!” The other voice, though, counters, “Those who care at this point are already aware. The rest aren’t interested in being preached at by you. Let reality educate them, as it soon will.”

No coincidence, then, that last week, heavy into this mood, I decided to reread Atlas Shrugged.

I can't say I feel exactly the same — I'm not ready to do the gulch thing and I continue my plans to race into print this summer to speak out with a collection of thoughts called Refuse to be Afraid — but I feel Lightning's pain, if pain is the right word to describe it.

The voice of freedom these days is a lonely voice crying in a wilderness. The statists who declare man and woman to be herd animals have long held the upper hand, to the extent that we who seek to live on a little land in a wooded area find ourselves fighting a nagging feeling that we are guilty of a selfish something called "urban sprawl." Why would a good little human want to separate from the herd and inhabit an area larger than a comfortable little lot surrounded by other good little humans, after all?

But then there's the bigger nagging feeling, the one that feels like The Real Me yearning to break out, the one that says man and woman are not dogs, not pack animals. You cannot define me by the color of my skin, my sex, the ethnic history of my family, the region of the world I have chosen to inhabit, or even the philosophy I have have adapted and adopted as my own, because there has been no one quite like me in the history of the world and never will be again — I am, in short, a unique individual, and you cannot lazily define me with words like "white man" or "libertarian" or "journalist" or "Scandinavian American" — and this is the most important part: Every soul I encounter today is just as unique, even (perhaps especially) those whose eyes are glazed over and are running with a pack, and I cannot dismiss them as anything less than a distinct individual.

Atlas Shrugged portrays a nightmare world where the herd mentality has won the day, but those chosen as shepherds have had enough of perfectly capable humans expecting them to be sheep herders, and they separate themselves, leaving those who believe themselves part of a herd to fend, unsuccessfully, for themselves.

In the memorable dystopian TV fantasy The Prisoner, our protagonist screams, "I am not a number, I am a free man!" even as he is forcibly kept captive in a jolly village and always addressed as Number Six — we never learn his given name. I understand Taran's feeling of quiet resistance, just as I understand the gulchers in Atlas Shrugged, but I don't think her weariness is indifference. I think it's just weariness. Rest a while, mute-ant friend, and see what comes next. Seems like for all this quiet, a novel is chugging its way along the rails of your soul, for example, a novel that addresses many of these themes — so you're not as indifferent as you might believe. You're just quiet, and resisting.

Funny thing about freedom, though: It's hard to stay quiet. You know everyone has a Real Me screaming to get out, and sooner or later you have to get up, run to the window and urge people to start yelling. We are free men and women, after all.

B.W.'s Book Report: Atlas Shrugged

When she entered the room, she knew immediately that he had finished reading the book. His eyes surveyed the lines of her dress approvingly, as if remembering his glorious exploration of the underlying body and recognizing its perfection, content in the knowledge that he knew and understood every contour. As he looked around the room, she could tell he saw the furniture, the appliances, the ashtray full of crushed stubs with the telltale dollar sign, in a way he could not have seen fully unless and until he had read and absorbed every page into the core of his being.

"I want you to stand there quietly for a few minutes," he said, without greeting, getting straight to the point, his eyes still meeting hers with an honesty that said, we are equals among equals and human in a way mere humans cannot bear to know. "Because what I have to say must be said completely, and you must hear all of it, because I have earned this and, well, I know I shall never be able to say it again after tonight."

She nodded, granting him the right to make an interminable speech even though she knew what he was going to say, by the way he held his chin, by the panther-like tension in his shoulders, and by the way every mannerism declared he knew who he was and his purpose in being.

"I don't need to tell you I have finished the book, because so much has passed between us that I know you know I know you know I have completed the journey," he began evenly, the smoke from his last cigarette hanging in the air, mingling with the confident assurance of his smile. "It has been an exhilarating trip at that. While walking vicariously in the shoes of Dagny Taggart, Hank Reardan, Francisco Domingo Carlos Andres Sebastián d'Anconia and John Galt, I revisited all those pivotal days of my life when I chose between the excellent and the good-enough, between the very best my mind could offer and the quotidian. I knew with certainty the days when my path diverged from the best my life could be, and I resolved never again to shrink from that path. I resolved that my life would be a celebration of exultation and exaltation, that I would exult in the act of exalting and comprehend the difference between the words.

"However," he said next, and her heart jumped because she knew in the way he hesitated before saying the word that this would be the last time they would speak together. Then, as if to extract the dagger and plunge it once again into her heart, not out of spite but because it represented his highest purpose and, she knew, he knew she knew, he repeated the word before he continued.

"However, I am troubled by the author's conclusions and the dénouement of her fable. Can it truly be that the unclouded mind, seeing reality as fully and clearly as reality truly is, would willingly stand by while those of lesser mind and the practitioners of non-thought lead the world to its inevitable destruction, then triumphantly return to rebuild from the ashes? As these superhuman thinkers and doers walk freely among the lesser lights again after withdrawing their services, do they truly expect that the survivors crawling up from the destruction will welcome them back with open arms, eager to go to work for them and help them build their superior products and exchange value for value and live happily and triumphantly ever after? Perhaps that is why she ends the story before they actually go back.

"It has been said that no matter how successful a workers strike has been, the workers will never gain back the wages and the quality of life they could have been earning while they were gone. In an especially bitter strike, the lingering animosity and loss of trust is never fully overcome, and while the two sides may finally settle and begin to work together again, they are cautious and more wary of each other from that point forward, never quite trusting each other to the extent they did before the strike. How much more wary and untrusting, then, will be the survivors of a strike that was the catalyst of the complete collapse of civilization as they knew it?

"As brilliant as the story was — and I do not deny its brilliance; I have spent every available moment of my leisure time for these three weeks engrossed in the story — in the end I found myself as puzzled as I was by the conclusion of the author's previous novel. In writing that previous book, did she really believe that the power of her philosophy was such that, having heard that philosophy proclaimed, a jury would find a man innocent of a violent act that left a woman injured within an inch of her life? In writing this novel, did she really believe a dying nation was best left to die, and many thousands and millions dying with it, and that those who stood by and permitted that death were best equipped to lead the subsequent rebirth and renewal? Did she really believe that, having heard a dry and scholarly dissertation on the reasons why the best and brightest should stand by and allow civilization's collapse, that the survivors would comprehend and welcome the return of the best and brightest as the opening fanfare of a new and better utopia?

"I find her stories inspiring and thought-provoking, but her end scenarios — if I may use the word — illogical. But I see I may not use that word here."

The gun fit in her hand so naturally that she almost was surprised to find it there, even though she had known she would draw the weapon from the moment she entered the room. Now, she met his gaze and exulted to see the look of peace and comprehension on his face. "Is that all that you wished to tell me?"

"Not quite," he said with an understanding smile. "I found the author a bit too willing to rationalize the initiation of force when her heroes committed violence."

"Her heroes never initiated the use of force," she said quietly. "They only killed in response to the force initiated by others."

"No," he said with calm assurance. "That's not true, especially in the novel's closing pages. For so much of the author's fable, A is A. But her heroes did not wait to use violence until it was their only remaining resort, and therefore it appears to me that A is not A."

"Check your premises."

"I did, and in this case I believe the author checked her own premises at the door and neglected to cash them back in. I believe that after all of that struggle and all of that angst, Dagny Taggart, John Galt and their friends jumped the shark. And that is why I am finished here."

"Yes, you are," she said, holding her voice steady and emotionless as she struggled for control of her emotions. "I love you and all that you have been to me."

Calmly and impersonally, she, who would have hesitated to fire at an animal, pulled the trigger and fired straight at the heart of a man who had wanted to exist without the responsibility of consciousness.

Oddly, she did not live happily ever after.

Science fiction?

Has anybody else noticed that there's a copper shortage?

... it appeared someone tried to saw through a live wire to steal the copper inside at an Arizona Public Service Co. power substation in the 8000 block of North El Mirage Road. It occurred at 11:30 p.m. Saturday. According to reports, the wire generated 7,200 volts of electricity.

... metal theft is a widespread problem throughout the Valley, given the area's shortage of copper. In the past, criminals have stolen power units and water meters from businesses to trade them in for money at second-hand recyclers, he said.

If copper becomes scarce, how will electric current be delivered? If electricity becomes scarce, what will support the World Wide Web? TV? radio?

Maybe it's not such a great idea to aim for a future without print newspapers. Or maybe I'm reading too much into it because I'm reading too much ...

Or! Maybe someone is trying to scare us.

update

I'm still reading. Part 3, Chapter 2 is next. Sorry to be a stranger, but I can't walk and chew gum at the same time.

Pretty heady stuff ...

B.W.'s Book Report: preview

If you recognize the quotes I've been tossing out of late, you know what I got for Christmas and what I've been reading since a few days after Christmas. I'm just shy of the halfway point.

The last three months or so have sent me through Murray Rothbard's The Betrayal of the American Right, Frank Chodorov's Out of Step, Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead, and now this. It has been educational.

It would not be accurate to say that these books have shaken me to the very core. That phrase implies a rattling of my beliefs, an upsetting of the apple cart. Rather, this gives me the sensation of having been previously upset, being a bit lost, perhaps treading water for a very long time, and finally finding land under my feet, a foundation, a grounding, a confirmation of my beliefs.

These books did not shake me to the core, but they have touched my core. More importantly, I am not drinking Kool-Aid here. I do not blindly embrace every concept these three writers have tossed in my direction, but they have put words to thoughts that hovered in my consciousness waiting for the words.

More than three years ago now, something happened in my business life that did shake me to the very core. In many ways I have been drifting in an extended state of shock ever since. These authors have taken me by the shoulders and steadied me. A year after the initial shock, I started this blog. It has kept me sane. Here and there I caught glimpses of what needed to be done; unleashing The Imaginary Bomb in podcast form was the first of a handful of steps in that direction, but I was still shaking. My friends here — you know who you are — patiently helped prepare me to settle down. Rothbard, Chodorov and Rand have settled me down.

And now what? That's a very good question. I have some ideas. I hope to be ready to share such as I can on Jan. 16.

The burglar and the public good

"Who is the public? What does it hold as its good? There was a time when men believed that 'the good' was a concept to be defined by a code of moral values and that no man had the right to seek his good through the violation of the rights of another. If it is now believed that my fellow men may sacrifice me in any manner they please for the sake of whatever they deem to be their own good, if they believe that they may seize my property simply because they need it — well, so does any burglar. There is only this difference: The burglar does not ask me to sanction his act."

Hank Rearden

And now it's going to be 2008

Listening to: Uncle Warren's Attic #46

"Francisco, what's the most depraved type of human being?"
"The man without a purpose."

*****

"I don't like the thing that's happening to people, Miss Taggart."
"What?"
"I don't know. But I've watched them here for 20 years, and I've seen the change. They used to rush through here, and it was wonderful to watch, and it was the hurry of men who knew where they were going and were eager to get there. Now they're hurrying because they are afraid. It's not a purpose that drives them, it's fear. They're not going anywhere, they're escaping. And I don't think they know what it is that they want to escape. They don't look at one another. They jerk when brushed against. They smile too much, but it's an ugly kind of smiling: It's not joy, it's pleading. I don't know what it is that's happening to the world." He shrugged. "Oh well, who is John Galt?"

*****

Thanks for visiting this little spot on the Web from time to time. May your new year be one of purpose.