Re: "The lost liberties of Atlas Shrugged are not part of the Trump presidency."

Really? Here are just a few, all from Trump's website:

Second Amendment rights:
https://www.donaldjtrump.com/policies...

School choice:
https://www.donaldjtrump.com/policies...

Health care:
https://assets.donaldjtrump.com/HCRef...

Rolling back regulations:
https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-re...

Lowering taxes:
https://www.donaldjtrump.com/policies...

Donald Trump is probably not the answer to anything. As far as I can tell he has no guiding philosophy. He appears to be just as much of a statist as his predecessors and his nationalism borders on the scary. He is the reaction to the collectivist, one world, socialist trend that has sickened the working middle class in the interior of America.
I am amused by Trump because of the discomfort he causes to the people that have just been pushed aside. I figure he can do no worse and if he causes these people misery I am for it. I think there is some potential to unleash some positive results by freeing business of some of the burdens of over regulation and taxation. I also think that getting control of education back in the hands of local groups, public and private is needed.
I fear restricted trade, blundering into a major war and increased government intervention into the private lives of citizens in the name of security. Sadly, I think both sides are equally likely to realize these fears.
I have often thought that the best person to be President would never run because he would be someone in the prime of a career having achieved great things. Such a person would not stoop to the level one must to achieve political success and subject there self and their family to the public abuse that it is customary to endure. One possible result of Trump's victory could be that it would encourage a qualified person to hold their nose and compete for the position.

I think Donald Trump is the only candidate who could beat Shillary, the best president scum can bribe.
I also think Trump has not even been given those traditional first 100 days afforded to other presidents to at least begin to prove himself.
I think this Gary Verboon has abused Ayn Rand's good name to write a slanted hit piece.
I know I did not give you that 0.
I think I won't do anything about it..

Name some. I agree easily that injustices exist
"Prison Time for Insider Trading on the Rise" (2011)
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1000142...
and
"Banker Convicted for Giving Father Insider Tips"
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa...

But Donald Trump never addressed that at all. If anything, he is a populist who will send business people to prison to demonstrate to the common man that is is against insiders.

The mythic past is the good-paying factory job from 1958. Have you ever worked in an automobile manufacturing plant? Their great wages that did not require any education was the cause of Detroit's downfall. Three lifetimes - five generations - of automobile factory workers who could afford their own homes could not help their children with their homework... homework that was not necessary because the next generation would take their place at that production line, not just working with machines, but working as a machine.

Yes, it was better than being a farmer or a sharecropper or a serf, but it was not the Lost Land of Eden. We do not need to rush back to it in order to be "great again."

And for all 0f that -- thirteen bad days in 230 years -- you cannot point to a single place or time when America ceased to be great.

Is it no longer great today? What place is better? Do you go without food? What are you lacking? What freedom are you craving? Are you enslaved because you cannot smoke marijuana in your state? Are you enslaved because an illegal immigrant is cleaning the restrooms that you would clean for $7 per hour? Are you lacking the freedom to buy gold or invest in oil futures or grow organic grapes or to genetically modify grapes to taste like fish?

What is it that prevents you from enjoying your full freedom in an unfree world?

And yet, here you are. Here we are. Ayn Rand's books have sold over 40 million copies. (See here: http://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/20... ) If you goto the Ayn Rand Institute website and find the Essay Contest winners, you will see that over the years, over the decades, many come from Catholic schools. They are not assigned The Fountainhead in their classes: they find it on their own. Plus you will find more than one winner or runner-up from those schools. They have informal Ayn Rand clubs. And that's just the Catholics that we know about.

Overall, the best ideas about reality, reason, egoism, and freedom, are making their way as memes in our society. But they are not part of Donald Trump's presidency.

Gary Verboon of The Atlas Society says that Donald Trump represents the refusal to think.
http://atlassociety.org/commentary/co...

Donald Trump never said word one about restoring your liberties. In fact, your liberties are not at all a primary consideration. If you know some other rhetoric from Donald Trump on that, please quote it.

The protectionism and paternalism of his campaign and inaugural address speak against liberty. Also, his "buy American; hire American" rhetoric denies your right to voluntary actions and economic transactions.

The lost liberties of Atlas Shrugged are not part of the Trump presidency.

"Greater" and "less great" are commensurable against great. If you know a greater place to live, then go there. America's greatness waxes and wanes. We have high points and low. But the range is always within "great."

America's greatness is impossible to tally in full, but let me offer these few among the many:
15th Amendment 1870
Telephone 1876
Electric Pen (Edison) 1876
Wireless telegraphy 1890
Commercial motion picture 1895
Wright Brothers Airplane 1903
Ford Motor Company (finally successful) 1903
General Motors 1908
Smithsonian funds Goddard 1913
19th Amendment 1920
First wirephoto 1921
Aeroplanes sink battleship 1921
Kodachrome 1935
The Fountainhead (novel) 1943
First Color Television 1944
Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation 1946
The Fountainhead (movie) 1949
Grace Hopper joins Eckert-Mauchly 1949
Elvis Presley Commercial Break-out 1956
Beach Boys "Surfin'" 1961
President John Kennedy creates Green Beret as a symbol of military excellence 1962
Leonard Bernstein's "Young Peoples Concert" broadcast on ABC 1962
First Man on the Moon 1969
Altair first hobbyist computer 1974
Executive Order 11825 opens GOLD markets to retail buyers 1974
Apple Computer 1976
Hayes first consumer modem 1978
Ronald Reagan elected 1980
Space shuttle Columbia first flight 1981
Ronald Reagan re-elected 1984
First U.S. Gold Eagle coins issued 1986
Round the World Flight by Rutan Voyager (Jeana Lee Yaeger pilot) aircraft 1986
US National Debt Clock Runs Backward September 7, 2000
Atlas Shrugged, Part I opens April 15, 2011
Osama bin Ladin meets his Maker May 2, 2011
Atlas Shrugged Part II released October 12, 2012
Atlas Shrugged Part III released September 12, 2014

Americas greatnesws was decreased every year that progressive ideas and policies were in place and being shoved down The United Sates' peoples throats.
Every year that the progressive NEA was in charge of the curriculum of the schools, every year that the progreswsives controlled the colleges that trained the teachers.
Just look at the lesson plans and teachers notes. They don't teach the goodness of the USA only the "Evil".
I'm not sure that the Trump Presidentcy will reverse all of this, but it looks as if it will be a start on the reversal. It the students are taught only the "bad" that has been done,, indoctrinated with the Evil America ideas, then the USA is on a downward trajectory that will only end in the total destruction of a way of life never seen before on the old planet, and most likely won't be seen again.

It's hard to discover which areas disturb the "progressives" the most. They throw high-volume hissy fits over anything they deem offensive. Maybe the best way to find out what they consider most important would be to sneak into their "safe spaces" and take a poll.

Where have you been Mike Marotta. Our freedoms and liberties have been slowly eroding for a long time and at super speed in the last 20 years!

When did it stop being great?

Hahaha!!!!

Gary North claims Trump's inauguration speech was like no other in history. Specifically USA history? I agree.
At the end of Trump's shake 'em up that was really a campaign speech to his base, professional phony baloney Obama hopped up all smiles and said something like "Good job." Michelle at the same moment looked appalled as if halfway through seeing The Exorcist for the first time.
http://teapartyeconomist.com/2017/01/...

"Look at the areas that disturbs the "progressives" the most and prioritize them first! " Yes whittle them away the same way they were implemented - over time. It will take patience and resolve on the part of millions of us.

This is the perfect answer. All of these acts placed limits on our possibilities therefore reduced our ability to recognize them. America was greater when it was free despite not having yet developed the latest gimmick that entertains us currently. We lost our full potential and are therefore less great. Unleashing the potential that while crippled, still exists, is the best thing he can do. Look at the areas that disturbs the "progressives" the most and prioritize them first!

When did it stop being great?

Interstate Commerce Act 1887
Sherman antitrust- Act 1890
Federal Reserve Act 1913
16th Amendment 1913
17th Amendment 1913
Social Security Act 1935
War On Poverty 1964
The 1965 Medicare Amendment to the Social Security Act
War On Drugs 1971
The closing of the gold window 1971
Community Reinvestment Act 1995
Patriot Act 2001
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act 2010

When did it stop being great? Little by little. Piece by piece.

The goal to “regain what we have lost” is about restoring liberties that we enjoyed before the government curtailed them. It has nothing to do with a “mythic past”, but it does look back to a real past in which there was much less government oversight and restriction on people’s privacy, voluntary actions and economic transactions. The need to reclaim lost liberties was also a major theme in Atlas Shrugged.