That's right. His law practice in the Gulch consisted of drawing up wills and other contracts, and performing civil unions. He was on-call for arbitration, but boasted his arbitration practice was zero.

He probably struck out the part about post offices and ost roads, erased the income tax, restored State legislative choices of Senators, clarified the Second Amendment so there would be no mistake, and in the Takings clause, changed "just compensation" to "the consent of the owner."

Talented, yes. yet in the end they simply created yet another GOVERNment of Force, destined to fail as have all governments before this one.
I wrote this as a part of much explaining why we ought never opt to be governed!
http://no-ruler.net/3460/failures-of-the...

There was a judge in the gulch named Narragansett. I remember he was seen hard at work revising the Constitution. I've always wondered what his mark up looked like.

And don't forget the Commerce Clause.

John Adams was right. Governing a free society was impossible then, and it is impossible now. It will take a great deal of maturity on the part of humanity to rise to the level that the founders imagined when they first set up the USA. They imagined politics as a duty to be performed for a short period of time once a year by men who would then go home and then go back to tending to their lives. It was an honor to be chosen, but was not intended to be a vehicle to acquire wealth and power. It was a dream then as it is a dream now. The amazing part is that as imperfectly as it was performed, the system worked so well that it created the most free and prosperous nation on earth. Can you imagine what it could have been if it had been implemented as it was originally intended?

I agree with Adams. I went to the Jefferson museum in Charlottesville VA recently, and came away with the impression that all of these "bad" traits in people were alive and well in the founders of the USA. Jefferson had slaves, our government basically invaded and took over the english, spanish, mexican, and indian lands in a huge "land grab" through the use of force (in violation of the ideals of the constitution). Most obviously relative to the indian population, and the mexicans in texas. It was a very immoral time for sure. Then there was the relentless pursuit of the mormons for having a different religion (polygamy seemed to be a big deal- for some reason) from the settlers (who supposedly came here to practice THEIR religion instead of the King's religion).

Objectivist government needs to be small and sparingly funded in order not to be used for cronyism on any large scale. I hate to give ANY money to the US government at this point- it just comes back to be used against me.

I've occasionally been captivated by the thought of Government By Lottery. At all levels, those to govern would be chosen by lot. Only felons and those who had previously served would be exempt.

there are tremendous difficulties in making such a system work, but it certainly would begin to limit some of the abuses. No doubt other abuses would rush in to fill the void.

No time to expand on these thoughts now.

I never heard of Ayn Rand until about 3 years ago.
I was drafted in 1969, was one of a small percentage placed in the Marines and was honorably discharged as a corporal two years later, using the G.I. Bill to get a degree from the college I had been kicked out of during 1968.
I've also admitted to being a Christian here.
I agree that the Bible was an important influence upon the awesome individuals who are our Founding Fathers

The only way an Objectivist could be elected to political office (for more than a single term, anyway) would be if a majority of the voters shared a significant portion of his or her underlying values. These voters would be very concerned with protecting their personal and economic liberty, making it unlikely that they would continue to elect any Objectivist who became attracted to power for its own sake.

Reading the comments makes one appreciate how rare a collection of individuals we had to start this country and how talented they were...

The answer, regrettably, is no. That is why our Founding Fathers wisely put the division of powers in place. The Constitution is our restraint, but humans being human, will always find ways around such restraints. That is also why good men must be eternally vigilant (to paraphrase Andrew Jackson's parting comment in 1837).

An Objectivist would have to provide Value. Just as there are business specialties in finance, science, metallurgy, etc., there is nothing wrong with having a specialization in political science. To me, some of the greatest political scientists there ever were were found in the Constitutional Conventions where they debated for months the various strengths and weaknesses of governmental systems.

To me, here's how an Objectivist would operate: one simple principle: Has everything reasonable been tried in the market FIRST, and do we have ANY precedent for something similar elsewhere?

It goes without saying, also that an Objectivist would eliminate corporate taxes (and probably personal ones as well) as well as doing away with all the entitlement programs - personal OR business. And their pay would come out of the amount of money collected but NOT spent!

This is interesting, and a very thought provoking quandary.
As many know I DO believe in God, although I am not "Religious" in that I do not attend any particular "religion."

Having said that I want to respond in context and also draw a parallel.
First there is a specific passage in the Bible that comes to mind, totally in the context of this discussion.

Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes
Standard Version:
Ecc 8:9 All this have I seen, and applied my heart unto every work that is done under the sun: [there is] a time wherein one man hath power over another to his hurt.
NWT:
Ecc: 8:9 All this I have seen, and there was an applying of my heart to every work that has been done under the sun, [during] the time that man has dominated man to his injury.

The objectivist, no man rules over or imposes his/her will on or over another. All actions are governed by value for value, equitable trade in a totally voluntary manner between two parties.

It is ONLY when man "rules" or "dominates" or "imposes" their will on others that the principals fall apart.

Many are familiar with the axiom, "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Within the principals of the Objectivist, there is no proverbial "power" with which to impose on others against their will, hence, the Government would be that of extremely limited ability, and relegated pretty much to simply resolving disputes.

The primary key is that ALL, i.e. 100% of the population MUST believe in the Objectivist oath, "I swear -- by my life and my love of it -- that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.", or LEAVE the Gulch to those who do.

To stay within its limits, an Objectivist government must refrain from anything that smacks of disarming the people. An armed society is a free society.

The ideal Objectivist government is barely a government at all. It is, instead, a Committee of Public Safety. The major stakeholders, those who have the most property to guard, form their own militias. They then agree, in committee, on how to deploy their forces for defense or for retaliation.

The Triumvirs of Atlantis, which is to say, John Galt, Francisco d'Anconia, and Ragnar Danneskjöld, worked as a Committee of Safety. John Galt held the proxy of Midas Mulligan, the top stakeholder, the landlord. Francisco d'Anconia, who owned the copper mines (probably the Red Mountains overlooking the Uncompahgre River Valley) was the second-largest stakeholder. Ragnar had the offensive military force, that being his ship, its crew, and the equipment they carried. I would imagine this Committee invested Henry Rearden, and then Dagny Taggart, with full membership when they each joined the Gulch community, this on the basis of their particular stakeholds.

In this Committee, the community vested the executive power. They would no doubt vest the judicial power in a court whose members they would appoint. The legislative power they would vest directly in the residents.

I agree. Yesterday, I was looking for the exact wording of the Tenth Amendment and quickly read the entire document. Being very literal, I only saw the words for what I thought they were intended to mean. In that context, I thought wow, I could live with that! It is not that I haven't read The Constitution many times but with all the "interpreting" I had pretty much forgotten what the actual words were. When people have an agenda, they can make any argument, even cloud the issue by questioning the meaning of "is".

It's the anti federalists objection to the N&P clause that I consider quite clairvoyant. They knew this what this one would lead to and fought it, and who's gonna fight the GW?

We all sang it on schoolhouse rock. Except I was already reading the Freeman and had questions.

I don't think the problems are with the clauses, they're with the people in position to reinterpret them away from the original intent and understanding of the Founders and those that voted to accept them. Thus the so called 'living document.'

I wonder how different the country would be without two clauses.
The general welfare clause
The necessary and proper clause
How much individual rights have been destroyed b/c of these two?
Maybe add a non interpretation clause such as no abridging of the freedom to speech means just that.
I dunno, would love to see it....objectivists, libertarian, anarchist, hell I don't care give me liberty!

" It was his for the taking, but he eschewed it to return to being a producer."
When his troops started to break formation, he ran out into the fire and yelled at his troops to do likewise. It's just luck he didn't die. If he was really willing to die for a republic, maybe that same fortitude made him eschew being king.

If there's a good court system with power to enforce contracts, most people will work out their disputes outside of court. If there are few laws, only laws against force, enforced strictly, most people will respect them, and it stops those frailties before they manifest themselves.

So I agree with Adams about the need for a strong leviathan, but it only works if there are few rules and they're consistently enforced.

An Objectivist might view being a politician closer to the intent of the Founding Fathers. He would hold office for a time and return to making a living.

If the only thing that Objectivists could agree upon was to severely limit the power of their government to seize the property of productive citizens, we would have Galt's Gulch in America.

I don't think of Objectivist as politicians, but as selected for participation in governance. I'm not sure that one necessarily means the other.