What is the purpose of Galt's Gulch online?
Posted by Mamaemma 9 years, 2 months ago to Philosophy
"Our sole relief were the rare occasions when we could see one another. We found that we liked to meet- in order to be reminded that human beings still existed. So we came to set aside one month a year to spend in this valley- to rest, to live in a rational world, to bring our real work out of hiding, to trade our achievements- here, where achievements meant payments, not expropriation. Each of us built his own house here, at his own expense- for one month out of twelve. It made the eleven easier to bear."
That's what Galt's Gulch online means to me.
That's what Galt's Gulch online means to me.
"Who is John Galt?" hits hard and clear... the best of the series, but let's face it, we'll never see that happen.
The only way of escaping this trip is by refusing to support the beast, and getting rid of all GOVERNments of Force and their Rulers. This will hopefully occur during the coming Great Collapse. We see that "voting" for our Rulers doesn't work... never has. But based on vote2012, 98% of the voters accepted continuing tyranny. GO FIGGER!
"An electorate stupid enough to put O in the WH _twice_ is clearly dumb enough to put Hillary in The Big Chair, too..."
No, I'm not encouraging that... it scares the hell out of me... I just observe the shit going on and try to set my own expectations accordingly. That helps, even if just a little. Better than being totally surprised when the votes are tallied.
Refusing to support them does not make them go away. A collapse would create chaos and demands for more government to "help". It would be sold as proof of the failure of freedom. If you want to reverse this it will take more than "hope".
Reversing the course of a nation and a culture requires the spread of the right ideas of rationality, individualism and freedom. Without the right knowledge of what is possible people are too frightened to "risk" freedom. Spreading the right ideas is an absolute requirement and cannot be bypassed with hope.
Supporting Rulers and their Governments is merely throwing good money after bad. We've been working on all this for most of a long lifetime, spreading "the word". Yet it just keeps getting worse. Darn few listen. So where's the "hope", anyway?
If a spiraling decline were to cut off freedom of speech and thought, making the sufficient spread of better ideas impossible, then it _would be_ impossible, short of starting over after another Dark Ages, but no one knows if that will happen. Frustrated abandonment of what is required in a pursuit of hoping that an accelerated plunge into a collapse will suffice does not make the impossible possible, it only accelerates the destruction.
please start here:
http://no-ruler.net/?s=failure+of+the+fo...
Prior to Atlas Shrugged and the ensuing publication of more of Ayn Rand's philosophy the trend almost had to be down because of the lack of a proper philosophy. The emphasis on reason and individualism of the Enlightenment made this country possible, but the ethics of egoism and the rational rejection of all mysticism and altruism was largely only implicit. The intellectual dominance of the church was overthrown and the right of the individual to his own life and the pursuit of his own happiness was endorsed but not supported philosophically. See Leonard Peikoff's book The Ominous Parallels. The intellectual revolution had not gone far enough.
The long term decline had nothing to do with the fact that the constitution was written by a "committee" and did not endorse anarchism. That is not only wrong, but is arrested at the level of politics.
"It's complicated," to use the recent catch-phrase.
I have libertarian beliefs and free-market beliefs, so I didn't support making smoking illegal in places owned by people. It appeared to me that the free market had come down on the side of the owners and they'd concluded that having smoking sections worked well for them.
Then smoking in specific places in NC, where I live, was made illegal. Prior to the action, catastrophists predicted dire results and closing businesses as a result.
Then reality AND the free market, after the laws went into effect, provided the real, measurable answer: more customers came to restaurants AND bars AFTER the smoking prohibition went into effect. Higher sales and profits resulted and complaints and opposition to the laws evaporated except for establishments whose explicit business IS to provide a place to smoke. Exemptions appeared.
Some situations are more complex than they appear... :) It makes me a bit more cautious about taking sides when new issues appear which might also have 'complicated' associated with their situations.
In all seriousness....you have ventured way over into the looter side if you let yourself be swayed by "well after we forced them to do it turned out OK" argument. I am so disappointed I can not even express it. And by the way, I have never been a smoker or a business owner. I just associate with this argument so much because I can not think of anything that is a clearer case of black and white, evil coming from the power of the majority.
One could (possibly) follow a similar line of logic on each side of the vaccination 'issue' today... freedom to control your own body versus data that show benefits if 'everyone goes along...'
I believe that exemptions were made available in NC to establishments whose ENTIRE clientele comprised smokers... non-smokers would be infinitesimally likely to even want to enter such places.
Perhaps the lawmakers where you are weren't smart enough to differentiate those two markets when they drafted their regulations. That would be my guess.
When the issue came up a few years ago in NC, I didn't want to give up my free-market-capitalist position, but I also knew that there were restaurants that my wife and I avoided because of the smoky air inside. Since the laws went into effect, we've returned to several such restaurants and enjoyed the cleaner air.
One MIGHT also consider the 'your rights extend to the tip of my nose or the tips of my toes, whichever sticks out further...' axiom... smokers have, in my opinion, too, the absolute right to do ANYTHING they want to THEIR bodies without my interference in those rights, but does that mean they abdicate ALL responsibility for their actions which DO reach my nose, throat and lungs? Or are they saying that it's NOT THEIR responsibility to not endanger ME, but it's the responsibility of the restaurateur?
It's still, imnsho, 'complex.' I LOVE Occam's Razor, but sometimes things just aren't all that simple.
I just found it interesting that when the government forced the establishments to give up some of their rights, their sales and profits increased. And my wife and I returned as customers.
That's all I meant by "complicated." That does NOT mean that I wholeheartedly advocate government controls as ANY kind of 'universal benefit' or panacea to ANY problem or problems.
I just like observing situations, changes and results.
Cheers!
https://www.aynrand.org/
https://ari.aynrand.org/events
If you are in some faraway place, then the virtual engagement here is especially important. For most people, living as we do in population centers, "Rand fans" are pretty easy to find.
The wider truth is that this is not the end of the world, but just the beginning.
Jan
I won't give my phone number here but I will give my email address.
Seems every conservative cause has it with their hands out--plus hucksters who just might as well say when Obama destroys the world you'll wish you bought my product.
dhed4138@hotmail.com
Yours truly, David the Dinosaur.
(Never been to Seattle; been to Portland.)
It is to allow the intelligent, thinking individuals here to play and laugh with others who know how serious the joke is, where we can breathe and go back out to face it again.
It is that place where "we never had to take any of it seriously", even if it's just for a little while.
But we do not actually work in the Gulch and exchange products, so there is no real work that we can bring out of hiding. What we have is a philosophical oasis. This refuge allows us to have discussions which don't get stuck at 'step one'. (If I try to have a discussion with most folks, and I begin with the premise that a person owns the profits of their work...this assertion is immediately attacked. I never actually get to talk about the 'next step' topic that interested me.)
What we do not have is any protection from the regulations that impede our freedom and decrease our productivity. It would take a real Gulch to do this.
I think that the purpose of the Gulch is to network a large number of isolated individuals. Synergy is happening.
Jan
A breath of fresh air... a life saver thrown to one drowning in the sea of statists.
Regards,
O.A.
IMHO this is very good company to be associated with.
I live in LA too.
Jan
Jan
Here is a link: http://secure.campaigner.com/Campaigner/...
It sounds like fun, so a friend and I are planning on going.
Jan