When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion—when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing—when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors—when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you—when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice—you may know that your society is doomed.
— Ayn Rand
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For a long time I thought we’d eventually be living in the world of Atlas Shrugged. For the past six months I’ve been certain of it, the only question is which page number…but I dont’t see any John Galt on the horizon yet.
I am more cynical than you..
The tea parties never convinced me..
The working man will fight sooner than the yuppie.
LOL, Im more cynical than you, I think secession is the only answer. “Progressives” want a different culture, different laws, a different form of government…a different country. I can tolerate right wing christians because they, unlike the left, won’t compel me to join their church.
Anyway I dont recall any popular revolts in Atlas Shrugged, just a couple of billionaires conducting quiet sabotage.
well…right wing christians who are statist will certainly want to force me to adopt their mores if they had the field to themselves.
No..
I think both sides (?) have problems.
I’m of the mind that most of the right wing “christians” (read: blind state worshipers) will either support the govt. or sit idly by and watch, depending on who is in power. As far as Rand’s quote, that process likely began when the constitution was ratified….
well yes…
and you can see why it makes perfect sense that Rubin would recreate himself as Alexander Hamilton..
(via the Hamilton Project)
Precisely! The occasional posting of these succinct quotes is appreciated and a valuable reminder to readers of what looms on the horizon. The principle of which Rand speaks is ancient: Israel begged for a king ‘like all the other nations’….they were granted what they cried for, with a strong warning what the results would be….
If I had been exposed to Nock, Spooner, and the Anti-Federalist Papers while in jr. high civics some three decades ago, I wouldn’t have burned so many years stuck in and struggling with my narrow-mindedness 🙁
Posting from well inside the beltway–this is truer than you know. The Greeks in their view of tragedy were on to something! To think that any of the tendencies that have become so brazen and apparent can be put in check via the current institutions is laughable and delusional. Sadly for all things have to run their inevitable course. Nobody in the U.S. will fight their own government–since most will consider fighters cranks and nuts–including family and friends. Myth of american exceptionalism runs deep and the people are soft, compliant and conforming. Abandon all hope those who live and toil on our fair shores.
One of my favorite sayings/expression is” “have you taken leave of your senses”. As you have done in you work and blog Lila we see that the current state of affairs is entirely due to people having taken leave of their senses. Media manipuation, myths, medicalizaing dissatisfaction all combine to the status quo.
One other sad spectable is incantation. Every time a new governmental outrage is announced or discovered several will cry out for the brave liberty loving americans who will risk life and limb to right the the terrible wrongs–some sort of american hero contrived from the inages of the revolutionary war or some combination of Ron Paul and the Terminator waging war on lobbyists, congress and media moguls. Sadly and honestly, the timorousness, stupidity and narrow self interests (easy to bribe with cash for clunkers or earned income tax credits) of the good ol americano will keep things as they are–and worse…Won;t get popular saying this–but we do get the government we deserve. We cannot get off the couch or away from twitter and facbook to start the revolution. Plus, what would that do to my credit score or ability to get a government job/grant/education law or other trinket to buy my servitude. Talk about getting manhattan for $24 dollars of beads, most sell their soul for less…..
Yes…we DO get the government we (the collectivized we) deserve.
We’re too busy screaming at each other over side-issues to figure that out though..
Oddly, I was looking for a good Musil quote, and I saw something that related. It was one in which he describes the criminal as only the point of sensitivity where the criminality of the entire culture breaks through.
I’ve had the same thought. I’ve often thought that great crimes “are in the air” like an infection and just need the weak spot to break through
Hitler and Stalin (just to take two who won’t be controversial) were exhibiting in their actions the worst tendencies of the age..tendencies that in ordinary people were dissipated in the imagination or in petty spite.
When I see the foam flying in some blog posts and comments, I have to wonder at our comfortable belief that people like these two are somehow exceptional monsters. The only thing exceptional about H and S was that they held exceptional positions that allowed them to do as they wished. But what they wished, it seems to me, is wished by many, many, many “good” citizens, “nice” people, “decent” folk…
And web comments and posts (often anonymous) show that.
But you would never hear anyone say that in a democracy. No one likes to say out loud that the demos themselves aren’t all that lovable and noble a bunch….and need to start working on themselves a bit. (And I include myself in the demos..)
Ah Lila! Musil was a genius. A careful reading of Man Without Qualities is de rigour to get a handle on how humans (particularly those in rich democratic societies as was fin de siecle Austro-Hungary) get seduced and or distracted by “ideas” and the complete disservice to humanity undertaken by “intellectuals” on a fairly regular basis. As you point out–such estrangement from common facts is widespread–thus the success of wars to end all wars, new election for change, a new technology to save us and the assorted blather we endure. Yes, we demos do have to improve ourselves but such self awareness is not very widespread. The delusions and idiocy will continue apace and as voltaire said the best we can hope for is tend to our own garden or thrust yourself against the FBI, local police and IRS. If somebody in the U.S. stood up against a tank, he would be run over and the tv crowd would cheer the death of a pink wierdo–and then the expose would show he was suffering from depression and once uttered an unkind remark about a black person and voted for Palin when he lived in Alaska–good riddance would chime the NY times. He should have stayed in his official protest area and sought help to recognize what a great land he lived in say the editorialists…….
Machinery.
Everything steams on ahead mechanically…
chatter, habit, reflex, cause and effect, reaction
All mechanism.
That’s the impression I get
The liberals say their liberal sort of things..
Even we libertarians are victims of fundamentalism about language that makes libertarianism some kind of “object” of pursuit or end in itself…
when it is really just a means of going – not an end – at least, that’s my understanding of it.
If it were an “end” then we would be no more than any other fundamentalist…
Besides, from what vantage point would liberty itself be desirable?
“Besides, from what vantage point would liberty itself be desirable?”
Love. Liberty is simply the path, love is the destination, in all of it’s forms and with all of it’s fruits.
yes…you have to have some other substantive end…
love is very Christian.
I would have said truth, which is very Hindu…
I don’t understand truth but I think almost everyone understands love, as it is a reflection of the soul. But whatever you call it, if you can establish that liberty is the only path to get there, whether as a person or a people then I think you have said something important.
Are lies the opposite of truth or is indifference the common denominator where the two merge?
I’ve always thought love and mercy was less than truth..which to me is justice.
They are the two pillars so they are equal..
Our society gives more weight to the first and in doing so, it distorts it.
For love to be really love, you have to have an equal component of truth..and vice versa
I suppose it’s a bit like the anarchism versus minarchism argument. It’s pointless because you have to attain one before you can see if the other is possible. For whatever reasons, we’ve (humanity) has never arrived to find out. Easier to just put up a god figure to create a short cut.
“If somebody in the U.S. stood up against a tank, he would be run over and the tv crowd would cheer”
Depressing, but true.
It’s when the number hits a magical point, say 100,000 + you, that something happens? When they rip people away from their TV sets and video games to do something to them, like jab them with a vaccine needle? Or, they will never do that to Mass Man, but when the electricity goes out in Winter time the effect is the same and so is the outcome if the electricity doesn’t come back on. Or,…
They will set the trap they step into.
If you want to be a great leader,
you must learn to follow the Tao.
Stop trying to control.
Let go of fixed plans and concepts,
and the world will govern itself.
The more prohibitions you have,
the less virtuous people will be.
The more weapons you have,
the less secure people will be.
The more subsidies you have,
the less self-reliant people will be.
Therefore the Master says:
I let go of the law,
and people become honest.
I let go of economics,
and people become prosperous.
I let go of religion,
and people become serene.
I let go of all desire for the common good,
and the good becomes common as grass.
Lao Tsu
beautiful..
not always true but beautiful and certainly good..
two out of three ain’t bad for an old guy
Which old guy, me or him?
haha