Atlas Shrugged did not proclaim that success is failure.

Check out the tv series JERICHO on netflix. VERY good story about the fall of US government and what could happen. I am amazed that this series made it a couple of seasons . Government would NOT like it

More than likely, the US government will fall due to a currency collapse, not nuclear attack like in JERICHO tv series.

A very good tv series on this subject was JERICHO. Great series showing what happens when the US government, which had gotten way too much into crony capitalism, was disintegrated by nuclear attack on important targets. Too bad it only went for a few seasons. Its on netflix I think.

And many confuse political action with arm-chair pontificating or an occasional letter to the editor. To become active and effective in grass roots or electoral politics in some specific realm requires a whole body of knowledge, experience, and often very frustrating effort, to say nothing of experiencing unpleasant side affects. (Every time I have gone to Washington or the state capitol I have experienced wanting to go home to take a shower after being near those types. There are very few decent human beings in the bowels of politics.)

This isn't something that Ayn Rand knew or wrote much about, and how to do it has to be independently explored. Ayn Rand was a novelist and philosopher who dealt in principles and their application and communication, not how to persuade snakes and people with brains in their feet of clay. After experiences with politics in the 1930s she was so disillusioned with it as a means for practical accomplishment that she chose to put her efforts where she could accomplish much more and lay the necessary intellectual groundwork. But you can make a significant practical difference if you are sufficiently motivated. It is generally very narrow in scope, and for the most holds back the onslaught more than making forward progress, but you can make a difference.

My statements and their tone reflect exactly what they said, which is based on what is feasible and what can and cannot be expected in reality, not Walter Mitty of the Revolution whose imagination confuses fiction with reality.

Ayn Rand did NOT advocate reforming the government and society either by "shrugging" or by illegal means such as revolution or tax evasion. She explained emphatically that the "strike" in the plot in Atlas Shrugged was an accelerated, fictional device to show how man's survival depends on the mind and what happens when it is withdrawn. It was not a blueprint for a military or political campaign strategy.

She recognized that when people are punished for their productivity they will often naturally respond by doing something else, or by quitting or by cutting back, which is their right and is legal, but never confused that with a means for reform. Above all she advocated understanding first and then speaking out with the right ideas as the only means to attain cultural change. If anyone decides to "shrug" to some degree, it is for the benefit of his own personal quality of life, not social change, let alone some kind of revolution attempting to bring down the government.

Anyone can see that urging revolution to overthrow the US government to achieve reform is both futile and suicidal. I fear for those who may try it, mistakenly thinking they are operating on the proper principles, and fear the consequences of their associating innocent people with their illegal and destructive acts. But I also fear our own government, especially when it is already looking for scapegoats and "dissidents" who speak out and don't show the required mindset of dhimmitude: psychological submission to statism, the Bureaucratic Mission, and collectivism. That does not mean that one should surrender one's own self and become submissive and stop thinking and speaking. Go where you have to to live and stay out of their way the best you can. Provoking them with threats or advocacy of illegality is not a good idea.

Relevant to this discussion is that Ayn Rand herself discussed the role of general censorship as a criterion for a complete break with the government. We are no where near that, even though there are increasing cases of intimidation under other laws (such as persecution by tax agencies and implied or overt threats against those requiring government permission for some normal business or construction activity -- "no free speech for the regulated"). But even in Soviet Russia people continued reading, thinking, and talking to each other (carefully) despite the censors.

Denouncing most of what government has done in the last 33 years does not justify the violence and chaos of a revolution and does not make it possible in reality, let alone achieving in the aftermath. This is fundamentally a matter of understanding and spreading the right ideas, and no one is "waiting until this nation is completely ruined" for "discussion".

But Ayn Rand made a distinction between revolution bringing down a government and when to worry about breaking laws. It was Ayn Rand who observed that a point is reached where there are so many contradicting laws regulating behavior that it is literally impossible to live in even ordinary ways without violating something. That is not revolution.

It also doesn't occur all at once across the board: Different laws in different realms affect people in different ways and have to be contended with in different ways. Some people in some professions are adversely affected more than others, and some property owners are impacted more depending on where they are (and what the viros are after).

Ayn Rand once wrote that she paid more taxes than she legally had to in order to avoid being accused of tax evasion because with her outspoken views the government would ruthlessly go after her with the slightest excuse. In another kind of example, when she was asked (at Ford Hall Forum in Boston) her advice on how those threatened by the military draft (at the time for Vietnam) should contend with it, she replied that it would be illegal for her to answer the question.

In any example, it is not sensible to run around advocating violating some law if you are concerned with government oppressing you. Contending with these and other ugly situations, as well as theoretical discussion of the nature of revolution and what justifies it, are much different than advocating the overthrow of the US government.

Ayn Rand did not advocate a strike to either reform or bring down the government, in the pursuit of liberty or anything else, let alone revolution to bring down the government.

The anarchism in the latter is the common lawlessness as a means to attack the government, commonly called anarchism (like the leftists rioting over the World Bank), not the 'theoretical' version in the form of the floating abstraction sometimes improperly equated with Ayn Rand's ideas. Those kinds of discussions on the nature of government are at least not illegal advocacy of revolution.

Thank you lol. I'm not sure we can even call the election a baby step, after Boehner's boner incident. More like a baby stand. Wobbly and not really going any where. I'd like to avoid a revolution, of course (!?), but not much else seems feasible. There's a blank out mind blockade out there and, for lack of a more polite metaphor, until people have to eat their own shit that they make for themselves they won't wake up...and some not even then. I said metaphor..don't go nuts.

I agree 100% ewv. AR never talked about violent overthrow of our government. Going on strike is different. Let's try to change our government peacefully. If we were more vocal it might help. Too many of us just sit back and complain.

I'm glad that you realize that our own complacency contributed to our current situation. When you are making a good income, have most of everything you want, it's hard to get interested in future outcomes. Let us get started cleaning up the mess, but not by revolution. November's vote was a baby step. Let's see what the next step will be. Unfortunately, so far, most of the women in the Gulch have more balls than the people in both houses.

Awesome.. tell her I think the way the press roped him into a list of questioning for the purpose of trapping him into answering irrelevant questions they could sound-bite against him for their leftist motives was deplorable and evil. I was furthermore sickened by the conservatives who hopped on the condemnation band wagon (Hannity and Greta to name two) who lost site of the real purpose of Clive's fight against gov agencies to kill the independent man by whatever means necessary... EPA be damned. Too many laws kill freedom, period. And that is the real mission of the ruling class. They thought targeting a lone rancher would be a piece of cake. And the first domino too. Hats off to Clive...and the rest of his active, present, gov protesters. We will need many many many more like them.

+1, Brad ;^) Popping bubbles are in abundance, lots more supply than demand.

Go ahead, pop my bubble. My idea has as much chance as anything else I've read in this thread.

Oh, and WRT those pigs, a little bioengineering should do the trick. Goldman Sachs is simply acting in its own self interest (an odd thing to have to point out in this forum). And finally, I call dibs on half your winnings as it was predicted in my thread.
:-)

Suppose pigs fly.
Suppose Goldman Sachs is "doing God's work."
Suppose I won $190 million in the lottery and used it to build Atlantis' infrastructure.

I just read your comment to my secretary who is a first cousin of Clive. She agrees completely

The sad state of our nation began about 100 years ago. Todays liberals embraced Karl Marx and later the Frankfurt School laying the ground work for our bankrupt country. I am not so sure the trend is reversible wihout singinifcant unrest from the moochers but it needs to be done. Certainly a show of force (there are 300,000 armed deer hunters in Michigan) may not end well and the ballot box may be the only real solution. Remember, it took 100 yearts to get where we are today - it may take another hundred years to get back to the fundamentals that made us great. As for me, I'll follow the motto I learned in the Boy Scouts - Be Prepared.

I've wondered about that too... there will be ranch wars... I see ranchers as the last real, rugged, unwavering, no holds barred, old school men that will stand and fight to protect there land and cattle....which means, their lives. (Not that there aren't other real men who would do the same to save what's theirs, but ranchers are their own breed...they don't have time or tolerance for taking shit from assholes who want to hassle them. Who is John Wayne? lol)

Not surprising.

Fighting for freedom never has been pretty. The lack of fight left in Americans over the last 10 decades, against it's own government, has landed us right where we are today. Blind faith that the gov had their best interests at heart when in fact they've been slowly pulling the rug out from under us. There are many ways to fight...being complacent and willfully ignorant only allows it to grow. We have a mess to clean up, and it's getting bigger by the second.

A revolution or a civil war? Lots of blood and horror. Are you ready for that? A bloodless revolution is no longer possible because of the type of people in Washington running things. Martial law, an imperial presidency and finally a dictatorship. Then an underground movement and years of suffering until the core decays and makes it possible for a revolution to succeed.
Not pretty.

Suppose the 25+ currently sitting representatives who voted to dump Boehner decided, en-mass to change parties and form their own? Amongst other things, come the next election cycle, they would be incumbents and have a voting record to show that they did what they were actually elected to do. At the very least it would eliminate the Republicans current super majority meaning that their votes would carry significant weight.

+1 for the unfortunate truth in your post Susanne

The existing party has set up rules that make 3rd parties chances of winning national office nearly impossible. Expecting a 3rd party (with little funding thanks in part to harrassment by the IRS) to win 75 to 100 national races is naive.
The existing party will prevent any popular non-party candidates from being able to participate in public debates and they will be ignored by the controlled media. (Ron Paul is a good example.) If that doesn't work then dirty tricks and innuendo will be used to discredit. If that fails then threats to family will be used. If that doesn't work then there will be a 'horrible accident killing the candidate and his closest friends.'
Power corrupts and the US political system is as corrupt as it is powerful.

ewv; Your comment bothers me on many levels. I'm still trying to decide if your statements and tone reflect just fear or worse, support of adapting to the government. You certainly don't understand AR and AS. Shrugging was nothing if it wasn't about illegally denying to the government the work and support of the contributors to civilization's ability to function and pockets to steal from.

I applaud sill's essay and ideas as well as his daring to voice them, not in defiance, but in a true exercise of his Natural Rights to express the uncomfortable and unpopular.

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