I’M GOING GALT.
I’ve had enough. Dr. Helen is right. The Chrysler debacle was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Unless it was the Dijon mustard. Whatever. I’m not going to play along anymore. I will no longer be blogging just to enrich Google or BlogAds or somebody else who just siphons our money and redirects it towards a usurper who wants to destroy capitalism. Blogging is not a suicide pact.
I quit. This is it. The end. I will not be blogging one word until we have responsible, small-government, free market leadership back in the White House.
UPDATE: Do not write me. Do not call me. Do not e-mail me. I’m serious.
UPDATE II: I will be updating this post periodically throughout the day to present my early impressions of Going Galt from blogging.
UPDATE III: Going Goat? A reader sends in an amusing find:
UPDATE IV: Quick hit — the best part about seasteading is “Fuck you, world.”
UPDATE V: A reader sends in a Disturbing Chart …
UPDATE VI: A mystery reader e-mails:
When you Go Galt:
– A massive weight is lifted from your shoulders
– The scales are lifted from your eyes
– The coffee is woken up to and smelt
– Food tastes a little bit better
– Food such as fish
– Fish such as smelt
– Sunsets are a little bit prettier
– Sunrises are a little bit longer
– Making love is also a little bit better
– Actually, it’s a lot better and also longer
– The days are a little bit longer, the nights are a little bit better
– Woodland creatures are a little less scary
– Nobody tells you what to do
– You get to tell everybody else what to do
– The forest and the jungle lose their sting
– Everything tastes like ice cream and smells like victory
– Only it doesn’t make you fat
– Free robots are available for chores and sex
– The Moon is a harsh mistress
Who is this mystery reader, you ask? I’ll never tell. (Hint: It’s me.)
UPDATE VII: People are free to criticize my decision to Go Galt. I only demand that they freely choose not to do so.
UPDATE VIII: The breakers crashed against the shore. The nanobots buzzed merrily in the distance. A small child died in an industrial accident. I pumped my servos twice for luck and thought, ‘All is right in the multiverse.’
UPDATE IX: A parable for our times — imagine a frog sitting in a pot of water that is gradually being brought to a boil. In this case, the ‘frog’ is the Nanny State. The ‘pot’ is liberty and the ‘water’ is the power of a billion teabags. As liberty heats the teabags, the Nanny State is revealed to be … yes, covered in boils.
UPDATE X: Send me $100 or I will tell your boss that you were reading this at work.
UPDATE X: What I’m reading.
UPDATE X: See Update I (Update) for an update to this update.
Oh noes. If all the forensic psychologists stop working, society will grind to a halt.
I’m with you. I will no longer post comments on blogs. That will put a spoke in their wheel.
So, did you finally get the Magic Free Energy doohickey to work? And the Magic Invisibility Shield too? And the positronic robot slaves to do the farming and maintenance on Galt Gulch? Cool!
I pledge to give up masturbating.
In about three minutes.
UPDATE: Do not write me. Do not call me. Do not e-mail me. I’m serious.
I make a cookie for u but I et it.
I pledge to give up masturbating.
In about three minutes.
Wow. You can go all night!
Uh…? What would be the illegal version? Or was Galt the Randian Übermensch who blew up a bunch of houses because he was having a cranky? I’ve never actually read any of that shit myself.
Yeah, you go ahead and do that. Stop working, leave the country and go found a Libertopian enclave in Somalia. Nobody will actually notice. Even your godlike business tycoons are pretty much interchangeable cogs, and as recent evidence has shown, often pretty bad at their jobs.
Do they not have the slightest idea how a market economy functions?
It’s no use. jerkhoff will find you.
Or was Galt the Randian Übermensch who blew up a bunch of houses because he was having a cranky?
Fountainhead. Galt is Atlas Shrugged.
Shush! I want this to last!
I would like to encourage anyone and everyone who thought that Bush/Cheney did a great job to kindly Go Galt.
Is that too much to ask?
I would like to encourage anyone and everyone who thought that Bush/Cheney did a great job to kindly Go Galt.
Dibs on the land grab in Wyoming!
I’m going Galt and gang aft agley.
(Thank you, Robert Burns.)
Randians are adorable. Folks on that thread cashing out their bank accounts to strike a blow against teh system. Bromides on simple living. Like hippies, only without the drugs.
Or was Galt the Randian Übermensch who blew up a bunch of houses because he was having a cranky?
I see actor212 already got it, but that was Howard “Domestic Terrorist” Roark, rapist of Mary-Sue characters and all-around jerk.
Can I just go “ga” and call it a day?
This entire “Galt” trope reminds me of that bit in the Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Trilogy where an entire planet was founded when a spaceship full of telephone sanitizers and hairdressers crashed into a planet fleeing a horrible catastrophe on their homeworld.
Of course, they were the only ones to leave…
Randians are adorable. Folks on that thread cashing out their bank accounts to strike a blow against teh system. Bromides on simple living. Like hippies, only without the drugs.
Or sex. Or social consciousness. Or decent music.
Ooh, maybe Charles Krauthammer could go galt. Or Peggy Noonan. Or, dare I say it, Rush Limbaugh.
This is a movement I can really get behind.
I’m going to target all bloggers who “go Galt.” Ooga booga!!
Like hippies, only without the drugs.
Or the interpersonal skills, plant knowledge, guts to actually go off the grid or ability to live with less, too also.
Can I just go “ga” and call it a day?
Ga lt.
Ahh, Dijongate. Can’t believe Obama would screw up that badly.
Oh, wait. You can get a jar of the stuff from Publix for $2. Oh wellllllll.
Bye bye boys! Have fun settling the gulch!
fleeing a horrible catastrophe on their homeworld
Quick, Repugs! There’s a giant mutant atomic space goat coming to eat your planet and raise your taxes! Quick, into this conveiently placed space ark where we can launch you all to safety!
Na Ga Happen.
Publix? Elitist. Real Americans scavenge their food from dumpsters.
I can see you’ve got “Going Galt” down. Another 73,000 posts about Going Galt and you’ll fit right in with the rest of those who are leaving to settle the Gulch…you know, right after Lost is done.
I have no idea why, but “Gone Galt” always makes me think of this.
Update: First comment mentions….wait for it….ACORN! Surprise, surprise, surpise!
Cyril Kornbluth had the right idea, just the wrong demographic.
Shorter Repugs:
(slouching down driveway with a backpack full of X-Men comics and Fluffernutter sammiches) “Yeah, *snif*… I’ll show you guys… you’ll miss me for sure… *sniff*”
Five minutes later: “I’m back! Miss me yet?”
In “The Marching Morons” they launched the gullible losers directly into the sun.
Damn you Reverend Battleaxe. Being unable to move any faster than a shamble always puts me at a disdvantage.
Her comment section is like neutronium made out of of bugfuck:
Colorless green dreams sleep furiously! Pear Pimples for Hairy Fishnuts! Do the Dew!
Default on your nose to spite your face!
Somebody commenting on the Dr. Missus site even made a good point: how does a tycoon like Warren Buffet or T. Boone Pickens “go Galt?” Buy an island, withdraw all their investments and convert it to gold, and disappear? And spend it on what? Nothing? Or just sit on their pile of gold bullion and grin? They can’t “withdraw” from the system, they are the system.
They don’t have any factories to close, any inventions to withhold, or any unique products to take off the market. In America’s “financial services economy” today, there’s nothing much to “withhold”. What could Bill Gates do? Dissolve Microsoft and withdraw Windows from the market? So what? Apple would rejoice. Linux geeks would fill that void very quickly, and all the Linux geeks are not going to do an en masse Galtian disappearing act.
Every hedge fund manager could disappear tomorrow and it would take all of ten minutes for their ecological niches to be filled by hungry newcomers.
Galt-style blackmail only works if one is in possession of something of unique and overwhelming value to withhold. Dr. Helen and her glibertarians have nothing of the kind.
Thuggish parasites are pooping snark on Dr. Helen’s comment thread.
The funny bit about the comments is Dr Helen deleted mine (among a few others) pointing out that there’s plenty of people to take their jobs, yet she left the hair straightening spam.
Seasteaders believe that government shouldn’t be like the cellphone or operating system industries, with few choices and high customer-lock-in. Instead, they envision something more like Web 2.0, where many small governments serve many niche markets, a dynamic system where small groups experiment, and everyone copies what works, discards what doesn’t, and remixes the remainder to try again.
Christ Jesus.
Keeping in the SyFy mode, “Do Galters dream of erected sheep?”
Obviously, Doctor Helen will be taking her Hair Straightening Secrets with her to Galt’s Gulch, and all us curly haired bastards will die a slow, non-straight-haired IGNOMINIOUS death.
Charlize Theron invented seasteading in the third seaon of “Arrested Development.”
In America’s “financial services economy” today, there’s nothing much to “withhold”. What could Bill Gates do? Dissolve Microsoft and withdraw Windows from the market? So what? Apple would rejoice. Linux geeks would fill that void very quickly, and all the Linux geeks are not going to do an en masse Galtian disappearing act.
Ain’t free enterprise a bitch?
You’re right, ZRM. I had somehow conflated that in my mind with touting the joys of colonization on Venus. Was that from The Space Merchants?
No, I think The Marching Morons also did colonizing, Mars or the Moon maybe. But that was just the advertising copy. The ships went straight into the sun.
If I can “Seastead” with her, sign me up.
Wikipedia tells me that it was indeed Venus.
But since Soros controls all Wikipedia content, it is unreliable.
World’s smallest arena:
Radio and Fox News Channel talk show host Glenn Beck, who kicks off a six-city stand-up comedy tour on June 1 in Denver
this whole thing reminds me of the Rapture nutters.
Them: In case of Rapture this car will be unmanned.
Me: In case of Rapture I’m taking all of your stuff.
Heaven’s Gaters were proto-galts.
Yeah, ZRM, in The Space Merchants, Venus actually was (marginally) habitable, and it was the job of advertising to get people to sign up. I think of those dirigibles in Blade Runner touting the “Opportunities in the Outer Colonies.”
Damn Soros and his Wiki lies!
The timing of this post is especially amusing, since I just got done reading a diary by David Sirota over at Kos that has to be the most self-pitying, whiny “I’m really leaving this time, and don’t you beg me to stay!” horseshit I’ve ever seen.
Oh, I think I remember that one. Once you got to Venus, you found you were so far in hock to the Companies for travel, food and air that you were indentured for some interminable time….
What? Glenn Blecch kicks off on June 1st?
FINALLY! Ding dong the dong is dead…
…what? He’s doing what?
Shucks.
Seems to be gone already. Er, gone Galted already.
The Heechee* went Galt. But they had a plan. And they were the good guys. And they were smart. And had cool stuffs to take with them.
The Arisians *sort of* went Galt. But they were also the good guys. And actually had powers.
*Any mention of Kornbluth immediately evokes Pohl for me.
I read that diarrhea of Sirota’s too.
You really are Going Galt. Seriously a Dr. Helen post and you’re digging back all the way to October (central to my point that this is central to…) instead of this one.
Seems to be gone already. Er, gone Galted already.
Yep, it just disappeared. Maybe he actually felt some shame. I’ll bet he comes back.
all the Linux geeks are not going to do an en masse Galtian disappearing act.
Yeah, you find plenty of Objectivist types wanking on Slashdot, who mostly seem to be frustrated low-level IT employees with delusions of grandeur. But back when I was actually involved in developing Linux stuff (hi Gentoo peoples), there was very little of that.
Dr. Helen and her glibertarians have nothing of the kind.
Does anyone? Agribusiness could probably really screw things up for a while if most of them shut down and torched all their property. Other than that, I can’t think of much.
Less than four months into the Obama presidency, and they’re like this. Sad, it is.
The Go Galt idiots are still mired in thinking that some genius entrepreneur can come up with something akin to an energy generator powered by unicorn farts all by their lonesome. Technological research doesn’t work like that. Tech development is a group effort now, because modern technology is so complex that no one person, no matter how gifted, can invent something alone.
Bill Gates didn’t invent Windows, and doesn’t keep it upgraded. There are umpteen computer techs and engineers who know far more about Windows then Gates.
Didn’t Galt have lab assistants? One of them could reveal certain key data points that would make it possible for other scientists to replicate the results. One of the truisms about technology is that once it’s shown that something is possible, it doesn’t take long for the technology to be replicated.
Oh, I also thought that once Galt’s blackmail demands were made, wouldn’t it be obvious that the government (who still has all the armed forces) would be working overtime to track him down and invade his lovely gulch? Sooner or later, someone would leak his location, or the shield would be penetrated, and the Army would know where to target the strike force.
And then we’d see how long John Galt could last being waterboarded before he revealed his secret technologies. If the choice is societal collapse, or stuffing wet rags down John Galt’s throat, (which the wingnuts assure us is not torture) what do you think would happen?
Lighten up, Francis.
Agribusiness could probably really screw things up for a while if most of them shut down and torched all their property
What? And lose all their subsidies????
Does anybody besides me see Dennis Hopper and Kevin Costner on that seastead construct?
Although it would be sweet to watch these guys reduced to drinking their own urine…
seasteding
These wankers have been on this “we’ll make our own Libertopia at sea!” crap for literally decades now.
You’ll note the proliferation of sea-going private states as an indication of how well the idea’s worked.
Didn’t Galt have lab assistants?
Of COURSE not! Lab “assistants”? Lab “parasites”, you mean, just waiting to sieze his great inventions and sell the to the collectivists for measly profit. Great men work ALONE! *crash of thunder*
Hell, I dunno, maybe he should have had robots or something. Just shows what a shitty writer Rand was.
You’ll note the proliferation of sea-going private states as an indication of how well the idea’s worked.
There’s only the one that I know of.
The Principality of Sealand
What are they waiting for, go already!!
What’s your beef with hairdressers though? A perfectly respectable profession.
These wankers have been on this “we’ll make our own Libertopia at sea!” crap for literally decades now.
And as usual, it’s really all about one thing. From a CNN article:
Joe Max:
Here’s the thing — even if John Galt did have lab assistants, do you really think Rand would have let them do anything useful?
If you want to understand John Galt, you don’t look at people like Thomas Edison (who had an entire building full of assistants). You look at people like Joe Newman or Dennis Lee. Their “labs” either consist entirely of themselves or are an infrastructure devoted primarily to stroking their own egos and trying to make their pet projects look less like blatant scams. A real-world Galt would be, almost by definition, more of a huckster/cult leader than anyone worth following. (In fact, when I think of the Galt character, Keith Raniere seems to be the most obvious parallel. Never heard of him? Exactly.)
I’m going to learn embroidering just so I can create this sampler:
ANYONE WHO TAKES ATLAS SHRUGGED SERIOUSLY IN ANY WAY IS A BIG STUPID IDIOT.
They make it so easy, don’t they? If they said, “Oh yeah? Well read Milton Friedman!” it would be one thing. You’d have to read it or pretend to have read it *and engage with its arguments.*
But engaging with Ayn’s “arguments” is not just a piece, it’s the whole cake. Yum!
See, now if they would stop sucking off the corporatists, the DFHs would be able to spend more time working on pot legalization with the Libertarians…
Why does that sketch of Kaus put me in mind of the way Julie Andrews is posed on the Sound of Music poster/album cover?
neutronium made out of of bugfuck
Note to self: Don’t drink soda while reading Sophist commentary.
WTF? I can’t find the Sirota article, even in Google cache.
We’ll show all those unsuccessful people just how successful we really are by becoming one of those unsuccessful people!
The seasteaders are gonna legalize?
Count me in!
Prospero:
Actually, the Golgafrincham plot I think was one situation where Adams dropped the ball — even though it turned out that the telephone sanitizers in particular were critical to Golgafrinchan society, Adams still played them off as a bunch of inept nudniks. In any case, it was Galt-going in reverse — the B Ark carried all the people who, though they seemed of no specific account, actually greased the wheels of the entire society.
“Do Galters dream of erected sheep?”
Awesome.
I just love the idea that people making 6 figures are going to voluntarily reduce their income by some non-negligible amount.
Nobody in the history of ever has done that.
But yeah, being poor is such a great thing!! Let’s go!!
Yes, to build his Magic Unicorn Fart Energy Generator, he designed all the metallic alloys and cast all the metal parts himself in his own private foundry, formulated and produced all the plastics in his personal fabrication plant, designed the electronic circuitry and produced all the components in his own mini-factory, thereby avoiding having to order any manufactured parts from outside suppliers (oops, I mean “outside parasites”.) This is obvious, because from the parts lists alone, some sharp teams of lab techs could work out how to make the thing.
And Galt still had time to memorize and spew out 400 pages of pointless pontification. Before lunch! What a superman!
What’s your beef with hairdressers though?
I’m bald.
Got a problem with that?
It was a simpler time, Joe.
#
actor212 said,
May 6, 2009 at 21:35 (kill)
What’s your beef with hairdressers though?
I’m bald.
Got a problem with that?
So you will be immune when Dr. Helen takes her hair straightening secrets away.
Well played, sir.
When they go, I’m sure it will end the same as Stark, in fighting and eventual self-destruction.
Can’t happen soon enough.
The Principality of Sealand
The Mouse That Snored
The idea that a Libertarian group would have to “toss around” legalizing marijuana speaks volumes.
“Bluthton.”
“Bluthton.”
WTF? I can’t find the Sirota article, even in Google cache.
He wiped it off Facebook, too, and now his status reads this cryptic note:
Today’s realization: It is liberating to occasionally cut things out of your life, and it’s good to admit you suck every now and again.
I guess he had second thoughts.
“Do Galters dream of erected sheep?”
Bloat Rammer was a great movie.
James Blonde: Do you expect me to talk?
Goatfinger: No, Mr. Blonde, I expect you to die!
Which is central to my point! Heh.
Talking about doing a “go Galt” in today’s global techo-economy is utterly idiotic.
Even accounting for the period when Rand’s book came out, a project on the level of a large-scale energy generation system being designed and built by one person is insane. It would be like thinking Oppenheimer could have built a functional atomic bomb from scratch, using no prefabricated parts or materials, all by himself.
I’M GOING GALT.
Strange – that’s what I yell if I’m taking a dump and somebody knocks on the bathroom door.
I’m going Galt but I’ll be back later to kick you lib’s asses.
Be sure and wipe, Big John.
Narrator: She was special.
Rita: Are houses terribly hard to make?
Michael: Actually, the hardest part is finding the land.
Narrator: But she wasn’t smart.
Rita: Instead of making houses, maybe you should make land.
Narrator: For Rita had only mentally progressed…
Rita: On the ocean.
Narrator: …to the level of a first grader.
Rita: There’s no land on the ocean.
Narrator: Michael might have noticed her disability if it had not been masked by her English accent.
Michael: You’re brilliant.
Narrator: Yeah… She wasn’t.
Galt-style blackmail only works if one is in possession of something of unique and overwhelming value to withhold. Dr. Helen and her glibertarians have nothing of the kind.
Well, and that’s where we get to the appeal of Randian fantasy for rightwingers, all of whom know themselves to be infalliable and indispensable. I mean, what a shock. It’s the tension between this fallacious belief in their superior worth and the real world, which never seems to reward their superior worth sufficiently because of all the parasites getting in their way, that creates their perpetual butthurt and the viscous miasma of victimization in WingerWorld.
Somewhere on that thread there’s a comment encouraging people to break the horrible socialist system by applying for all sorts of benefits they don’t qualify for. The wealthy and middle-class should raid the neighborhood food banks and overload the free clinics, which the commenter seems to believe are conveniently located all over the place. They should apply for food stamps whatever other government benefits they can think of and lie in order to qualify. She assures readers that “no one checks up” on such claims.
Why didn’t Ayn Rand have John Galt do that? I bet he could have invented some yummy casseroles based on noodles and mushroom soup. And used his hours of waiting at the clinic to catch up on years-old-magazine articles. And then he could have come up with a great speech to make in court when he got hauled in for defrauding the government. Of course the judge might not have let him deliver all of it.
I’m going Tuttle.
Now that’s a pipe of a different color!
Actually, the Golgafrincham plot I think was one situation where Adams dropped the ball — even though it turned out that the telephone sanitizers in particular were critical to Golgafrinchan society, Adams still played them off as a bunch of inept nudniks. In any case, it was Galt-going in reverse — the B Ark carried all the people who, though they seemed of no specific account, actually greased the wheels of the entire society.
Ironically, the manufactured threat was a giant mutant….GOAT!
And if you’re going to defend management consultants as useful bits of society, I’m going to have to ask you to step outside, sir!
Double-post apologies . . . all around.
This is the closest I can come to. Very un-Galtian in philosophy, of course. The numbers are looking better all the time. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
ATTFFFSSMATWNYTEOFT
She assures readers that “no one checks up” on such claims.
LOL!
I think back to last year when I had a friend who had a real tragedy occur to her and she filed for food stamps…man, I’ve been in IRS audits that asked for fewer documents.
The coffee is woken up to and smelt
Smelt what? Sorry, I’m a little hard of herring.
Looking at the wreckage of the culture that surrounds us, if there were anything to the whole “Going Galt” thing, you’d HAVE to surmise anybody who mattered had “gone Galt” about the time Raygun was installed as Prez…
a project on the level of a large-scale energy generation system being designed and built by one person is insane.
I’m sure today’s Galt-ians created their hugely beneficial contribution to society without relying a whit on government support, including research labs, measures and standards, roads, bridges, public utilities, educational institutions, regulations. Just tell me it’s true!
Smell twat? I cunt hear you.
man, I’ve been in IRS audits that asked for fewer documents
Ay-men. Having been on ’em myself, if you REALLY want a Stalinist bureaucracy that wants to control every aspect of your life, look no further than Social Services.
now I can hear the chorus of wingnuts: “They’re POOOOOR! They want OUR MONEY!” Tell ya what, sunshine – hire a few of ’em at your bid’ness then and stop whining.
It would be like thinking Oppenheimer could have built a functional atomic bomb from scratch, using no prefabricated parts or materials, all by himself.
Well, of COURSE he couldn’t.
He’s not a True Genius like Galt, after all. *snort*
These wankers have been on this “we’ll make our own Libertopia at sea!” crap for literally decades now.
Before that, it was all “We’ll make our own Libertopia in O’Neill L5 space colonies!” Good times.
Strange – that’s what I yell if I’m taking a dump and somebody knocks on the bathroom door.
“I’m downloading!” is the usual warning around these parts.
PENIF. That is all.
“I’m downloading!” is the usual warning around these parts.
Heh. There used to be a vaguely related one here – “Seg fault! Core dumped!”
A song for Dr. Helen and her fans. Based on a song sung by a mouse. Then I’ll “go Galt.” (They can never replace the song parodists!)
We are the strident Fauxgalteers (Fauxgalteers).
Our job is spreading lies and fears (lies and fears).
Do as we say and never do–
It’s bad for us but good for you!
That’s what makes us Fauxgalteers (Fauxgalteers)!
We cheer the troops but never go (never go).
We might get hurt, you never know (never know).
Hup! Two! Three! Four! Booyah! Booyah! Booyah!
Cheers for the strident Fauxgalteers (Fauxgalteers)
Everybody’s Tweeting about Going Galt.
Here is a micronation that sounds much more interesting than Galt Gulch:
http://www.owk.cz/index.htm
– The Moon is a harsh mistress
God, what an over-rated piece of Libertarian wankrag.
I’d rather read anything by Alstair Reynolds than struggle through that book again.
I went over there for fun’s sake – that commenter cowalker quotes above says:
If enough talented folks just took advantage (maybe that’s the key phrase) of so many free services, signed up for free food from local agencies (easy to do, you’re never investigated. fake a ss number and address and income: free groceries! I worked for a social services agency), sign your kids up for free medical care (You won’t be investigated, see previous) and flood the system with bankruptcy inquiries, and made banks file all sorts of paperwork for foreclosure notices…
So here we have this Galt-er proposing to desert the “system” and take her entrepreneurial,contributions and productiveness away – and she’s a social services professional! too funny.
Downthread there another commenter reveals his wife “works for” an oral surgeon – which, I suppose, doesn’t mean she’s making a productive contribution to “the system” that will be sorely missed when they Go Galt, but rather working as an assistant to someone else – just another loser, in their book.
I don’t have the time or the masochism to read more and see what the rest of them all do for a living, but I’m sure we’ll find a few federal employees there, some manicurists, and some public relations specialists.
D. hasn’t updated in a while.
The absence of his productiveness is painful, but illuminating.
Have I finally learned my lesson?
So here we have this Galt-er proposing to desert the “system” and take her entrepreneurial,contributions and productiveness away – and she’s a social services professional! too funny.
Actually, it’s very clever. What better way of ensuring your own job than to tell people to make sure they use your services when they stop working.
And I’m gonna stop eating Percocet tablets, once the bottle is empty.
I quit smoking. Again. I’ll quit one more time in a couple hours.
fake a ss number and address and income:
Didn’t they jail a whole bunch of illegal workers for “identity theft” for using fake social security numbers?
Didn’t they jail a whole bunch of illegal workers for “identity theft” for using fake social security numbers?
Nope. Obambi bought them new houses and livers with money he thugged from small businessmen.
heh heh heh
heh heh heh
heh heh heh heh heh
oh what fun it is to read
the whole thing heh indeed
In about an hour, Troofie will get out of school, and show up to tell us what he thinks, until the library closes and kicks him out.
I always enjoy the irony that the only way that right wingers can think of to show their displeasure with the actions of a democratic government, is to propose that rich people form a union and go on strike for better wages and working conditions.
When you go galt, you go galt all the way
From your first whiny pout to your last dying day.
When you go galt and the shit hits the fan
You know you’re alone, you’re a randian man.
You never make sense,
You’re always talking bold:
Your dollars and cents
Are always yours to hold
Or trade for better gold!
Then you are set with a capital G,
Which you cannot forget
It’s your reason to be.
When you go galt, you stay away!
Daddy said: I’ll break your bones
If you don’t get your tricks off the phone
Mother said: quit the show
She didn’t want the neighbours to know
Candy’s going Galt – got a room to let
Candy’s going Galt – got a pimp named Ted
Candy’s going Galt – Long Green’s where it’s at
Candy’s going Galt – she got stars in her head
Guess which planet?
Then there is the whole thing that both Helen and her husband are academics, in professions deemed worse than useless by their ideological compatriots. Both attended the publicly subsidized University of Tennesee as well.
They’re just like Uncle Milt, proposing an economic system under which neither would have any hope of doing half as well as they do today. But fuck the progressive tax, right?!
I feel Galt-y
Oh so Galt-y
I feel Galt-y and halt-y and, um, totally not gay
And I pity anyone who deals with me today
They’re just like Uncle Milt, proposing an economic system under which neither would have any hope of doing half as well as they do today.
Mr. Television was a libertarian?
Um, sorry.
until the library closes and kicks him out.
There’s a bit somewhere in one of Rand’s “philosophy” books, can’t remember which, but she argues that (and I SWEAR I read this) handicapped access is an affront to TEH TRUTH because libraries should be as difficult as possible to get into, thus onle TEH TRLY WORTHY would have access to knowledge.
Johnny –
You left out the most important part from a galtian perspective:
Tra la la la la la la la la la!
because libraries should be as difficult as possible to get into
How about difficult to leave?
See the manly man in that novel there:
Who can that ingenious man be?
Such a manly face,
Such a manly suit,
Such a manly sneer,
Such a manly me!
Them: In case of Rapture this car will be unmanned.
Tragically, the one bumper sticker that insures they’ll still be in the fucking car when the Rapture comes.
There’s only the one that I know of.
Well, that and Rapture.
And man, you have no idea how much I wish the Objectivists would just design an art-deco city underwater and then kill each other.
handicapped access is an affront to TEH TRUTH because libraries should be as difficult as possible to get into, thus onle TEH TRLY WORTHY would have access to knowledge.
Blargh. From what thankfully little I’ve read, it does seem consistent that Rand would consider the beefcakes from American Gladiator more fit for library use than Stephen Hawking would be.
Pere Ubu:
There is no Royal Road to Galtometry!
where an entire planet was founded
Guess which planet?
That was the theory, but didn’t they all die off over the winter?
There is no Royal Road to Galtometry!
That reminds me. I have to get my eyes checked.
Guess which planet?
Ceti Alpha 6?
Going Galt
oy gevalt
There is no Royal Road to Galtometry!
I always thought the Road to Galtometry would be a shittily-maintained toll road, with lots of billboards blocking the scenery like the road at the end of Brazil.
And man, you have no idea how much I wish the Objectivists would just design an art-deco city underwater and then kill each other.
The city would be fun to look at afterwards, I guess, but I don’t see that it’s necessary for this overall plan to be a success.
In this case, the ‘frog’ is the Nanny State. The ‘pot’ is liberty and the ‘water’ is the power of a billion teabags.
So what’s the stove, smart-ass?
And what does the crumbly burnt stuff on the pan under the burner represent? Answer me that, Shell Answer Man!
I always thought the Road to Galtometry would be a shittily-maintained toll road, with lots of billboards blocking the scenery like the road at the end of Brazil.
And there’d be a machine-gun nest at every property border, and a toll booth alongside each where you have to pay everything you’re carrying to pass. The libertarian ideal for freedom of movement!
The city would be fun to look at afterwards, I guess, but I don’t see that it’s necessary for this overall plan to be a success.
I like pretty things.
Plus it would make a fantastic artificial reef for all the fishies to nestle and swim about. Thus letting the Objectivists make one truly beneficial contribution to the world.
WOLVERINES!
There is no Royal Road to Galtometry!
How dare you tolla me? So dere!
Someone in her comments section calling himself Rick “Doc” MacDonald has posted perhaps the single greatest two-sentence statement in the history of mankind.
Describing the monetary policies of the European Union:
“It’s like one person eating fillet mignon and another having a hamburger and both stating that they are brothers of the cow. The description and the reality are utter nonsense.”
“And man, you have no idea how much I wish the Objectivists would just design an art-deco city underwater and then kill each other.”
I’ll happily volunteer my plasmids and upgraded shotgun to help get the job done.
So dere!
Virginia Dare? That’s another bundle of wingnuts entirely.
Are you klidding?
but what about that giant tuning fork weapon of mass destruction? It drove a goat madd? that really didnt fit in with the story too well.
Going back to my earlier link to Focus Fusion, I notice that in the “Name the Baby” contest, somebody has suggested: “The John Galt Machine.” Fucking wankers!
To dream the John-Galtian dream,
To flee the unbeatable foe,
To avoid unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave do not go;
To right imaginary wrong.
To love, but avoid the rape charge,
To sleep, when your eyes are too weary,
To become Cheeto-filled large!
This is my Quest: to become that large,
No matter how stupid, my voice to discharge,
To fight for the right
Without question or pause,
To be willing to create a hell
For a heavenly cause!
And I know, if I’ll only be true
To this glorious Quest,
That my heart will lie continue to spew
When I’m laid to my rest.
And the world will be better for this,
That one man, scorned and full of horseshit,
Still strove, with his last TV moment,
To make running away a hit!
It just won’t work as a solo act – you need a gang of like-minded emo geniuses to go with you, so as to found a magical utopia, with liberty, justice & free ponies for all. Oh yeah, & obedient android slaves – gotta have some non-genius labor to fix the toilets & take out the trash, after all.
Nobody here has suggested that you “Go Blart” instead – & neither will I.
at 23:17 Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist said,
That was the first person I thought of too. How it would benefit our civilization if a man who has the strength of character to keep working while struggling with unimaginable physical burdens was forced to confront extra obstacles to expanding his knowledge. Not.
Ten Years After performed “I’m Going Galt” at Woodstock. One of the best conservative bands of that era.
At first I thought you had two UPDATE X‘s, but then I just realized that it was symbolic of how “I” (you) have indeed “gone Galt” (gone Galt).
BTW, I’m going Seldon. You’ll be getting my first holographic message in fifty years.
Go-go-Galters watch ’em go go go
Go-go-Galters watch ’em go go go
imagine a frog sitting in a pot of water that is gradually being brought to a boil
That’s HORRIBLE! Frog soup could only be abysmal. Please, I want to imagine frog legs lightly dredged in flour and fired in garlic butter. Can I do that?
Update: Yes, I can.
Going Galt- taking your ball and
going homeburning down the stadium with the damn parasites inside it.Shell Answer Man
Was he the same dude as the Man from GLAD?
Or was it just the same trenchcoat?
Everybody’s Tweeting about Going Galt.
Everybody’s tweetin’ ’bout goin’ galt
mine our salt, brew the malt, whoa there halt!, not our fault, copy? vault!
All we are saying
Is give galt a chance.
Say, if Ayn Rand had written the Foundation Trilogy, the Galt Speech would have been delivered serially at fifty year intervals via holographic recordings.
Frog adobo?
The Foundationhead
followed by The FoundationMiddle and the FoundationFeet
I would also like to know where the STOVE in this Nanny State/frog-boiling horror parable will come from, and who will hook it up, not to mention who will devise and construct the hamsters-on-a-treadmill contraption that will most certainly be powering the flame.
I’m going malt, ‘cos these people make me want to drink.
If Ayn Rand had written the Foundation Trilogy, the entire frickin’ trilogy would have been the Galt Speech.
If Ayn Rand had written I, Robot, the robots would have ignored the three laws of robotics and refused to do anything but sit around making long, tedious speeches.
I’m going Jack Bohlen.
Why am I not cashing my paychecks? I’m not cashing my paychecks? What? OK, all right, I’ll get a haircut.
My God. The personnel manager; he’s dead. Everywhere, death.
Run!
If Ayn Rand had written The Catcher in the Rye Holden Caulfield would have palled around with Ackley and bullied the weaker students. He wouldn’t have cared that his brother died because his brother was a parasite, and weak.
A think a billion people teabagging at once would bring down every state.
If Ayn Rand had written Green Eggs and Ham, Sam I Am would have eventually blown up the plane, the train, the fox, the box, the goat, the boat (etc.) because his companion refuses to properly appreciate Sam I Am’s vision of the sublime deliciousness of green eggs and ham.
Tech development is a group effort now, because modern technology is so complex that no one person, no matter how gifted, can invent something alone.
In my dream sequel to Atlas Shrugged (apologies to Stephen Notley), the folks at Galt’s Gulch turn off the force field, only to discover that another force-field has been erected around the gulch, trapping them inside. Then, in a brief, succinct transmission from outside, the Randian supermen are informed that, due to their lack of altruism, they are quarantined from decent humanity, permanently hemmed in with their inferior technology. Soon, the fact that they are in a gulch with a shrinking water table sets in…
If Ayn Rand had written insert title here the protagonist would have been a tall, brilliant, strong, virile, manly, broad shouldered, manly man who will surely rape the heroine at some point and the heroine will be deeply in love with him but conflicted for some reason that’s never clear and then she will want nothing but to be raped by the brilliant manly virile manlyman who is valiantly fighting the leechy st00pid everyone else in the world except for one or two manly viri9le masculine brilliant manly men who make long incoherent speeches consisting of tautologies littered with silly assertions and a generous drizzle of contradictions but mostly really fucking boring isn’t it time for another rape scene yet? Oh yes, they smoke a lot. Also.
Oh wait, that’s the only thing she ever did write.
If Ayn Rand had written Green Eggs and Ham
It would’ve been a 2-page pamphlet, since in the original, Sam-I-Am was freely giving out the aforementioned foodstuffs, an unfathomable act of selfless altruism.
Wait, did you say this was a sequel to Atlas Shrugged or a book about the current state of the GOP?
B⁴: More, please.
If Ayn Rand had written The Bible, hardly anyone would have read it and even fewer understood it but millions of whacko fundamentalists fanatics would pretend to know its every subtlety and meaning and demand (often violently) that the rest of us live by their faulty, self-serving interpretation of it.
So that one’s a wash.
If Ayn Rand had written Green Eggs and Ham, Sam I Am would have eventually blown up the plane, the train, the fox, the box, the goat, the boat (etc.) because his companion refuses to properly appreciate Sam I Am’s vision of the sublime deliciousness of green eggs and ham.
Can I blow the goat?
Please let us make a new internet tradition out of supposing how Ayn Rand might have written the great works of history.
Jesus Shrugged?
In my dream sequel to Atlas Shrugged (apologies to Stephen Notley),
Atlas Cries Like A Little Pussy. Great book.
if Ayn Rand had written The Communist Manifesto, it would be a single sentence: “Get Back To Work, You Underclass Barbarians”.
If Ayn Rand had written this comment, it would be pretty fucking spooky.
If Ayn Rand had written Green Eggs and Ham
GET OUT OF MY HEAD YOU!!!!
AH WAZ GON WRITE THAT
Now, Emma, what do you think of me?
Mais Rodolphe, I don’t think of you.
Wow. Did someone put something in y’all’s water this afternoon? And why aren’t you sharing?
Dayum. Falling like flies. sans link, New Hampshire legislators vote for gay marriage
FYWP! Whattaya got against fagnups?
Wherever the top marginal income tax rate is raised 3%, I’ll be there!Wherever the SEC tries to regulate CDSs for fraud, I’ll be there! Wherever there’s a Walmart being bulldozed to make room for low-income subsized housing, I’ll be there!
Jesus Shrugged?
Damn Roman parasites nailed his arms to prevent that.
For no very good reson at all:
If Ayn Rand had written Red Dawn – and were (thankfully) more terse doing it – this would be the result.
If Ayn Rand had written Animal Farm, there would have been no Snowball, no internal fighting, no good pigs at all.
And if Ayn Rand had written The Incredibles, Buddy/Syndrome would have been the hero.
Not precisely following trump suit but Lawyers Guns & Money is always worth a look:
I suppose if Ayn Rand had written her tedious novels in the early 19th century, the Americans in Texas would have been vowing to “go John Galt” rather than submit to the Mexican government’s taxation and anti-slavery policies.
If Ayn Rand had written the bible, even Christians would hate it.
I’m still puzzling over this one:
If Ayn Rand had written her own version of Lord of the Flies, the final work would very likely have been a perfect retelling of the Odyssey Trip for the Hill Country Montessori School.
I always picture the Gulch quickly falling into games of Galtier-Than-Thou in which people are periodically thrown out so show them they aren’t that important.
cowalker said,
Like this?
Mickey Kaus said,
That’s blow UP the goat, Mickey. You’ll want chapstick.
P.S. Somebody left a galt in a burning paper bag on my doorstep the other day. The bastard.
I wonder how all these Galtians plan to feed themselves.
“Then there is the whole thing that both Helen and her husband are academics, in professions deemed worse than useless by their ideological compatriots. Both attended the publicly subsidized University of Tennesee as well.”
As usual, J. Heller’s already tilled that field:
“Major Major’s father was a sober God-fearing man whose idea of a good joke was to lie about his age. He was a long-limbed farmer, a God-fearing, freedom-loving, law-abiding rugged individualist who held that federal aid to anyone but farmers was creeping socialism. He advocated thrift and hard work and disapproved of loose women who turned him down.”
If Ayn Rand had stumbled into William S. Burroughs, they would have annihilated each other and disappeared in a burst of subatomic particles.
Please let us make a new internet tradition out of supposing how Ayn Rand might have written the great works of history.
And Lo, it was done! *sigh* You are all funny, intelligent and exceedingly attractive, and I call shotgun on all Galt-goings.
I’m going malt, ‘cos these people make me want to drink.
BBBB resorts to the argumentum ad bibendum.
UPDATE VIII: The breakers crashed against the shore. The nanobots buzzed merrily in the distance. A small child died in an industrial accident. I pumped my servos twice for luck and thought, ‘All is right in the multiverse.’
I recognise this as a Shorter version of “The Engine at Heartspring’s Center”, and I claim my prize.
Plus it would make a fantastic artificial reef for all the fishies to nestle and swim about. Thus letting the Objectivists make one truly beneficial contribution to the world.
Clearly, you have played “Bioshock” on the XBox or the Playstation 2. Incidentally, a more elegant rebuttal of objectivism you will not find anywhere else. Of course, you have to play it all the way through.
It says something about objectivism, by the way, when it can be elegantly rebuffed by a video game.
If Ayn Rand had written Atlas Shrugged, it would have been just as awful as it is, because A = A.
If Ayn Rand, had written The Lord of the Rings, Sauron would have shown those parasitic Hobbits a thing or two when they tried to sneak into his gulch!
If Ayn Rand had written Star Wars, George Lucas would be very, very angry.
The Lord of the Rings is a simple story about a violation of private property rights, and the trafficking in stolen goods by the mooching hobbits, and the unemployed vagrant Gandalf, against the titans of industry Sauron and Saruman.
It also is decisively lacking in a 45 page long speech by Saruman which explains why it was moral for him to betray the council, seize the hobbits and destroy the freeloading kingdom of Rohan.
If people are going to imagine a version of ‘Atlas Shrugged’ as written by Kornbluth, then clearly the least productive members of society should be lured away by the promise of an ocean-going life free from the strictures of government (“Shark Ship”).
Isn’t that what is essentially happening to the Republican party?
Mirror mirror on the wall, who’s the Galiest one of all?
arg, “galtiest”
Can we all go Jack Bauer on their asses? After all, if it
doesn’t cause permanent damagegets good ratings, it isn’t torture!(Am I referring to what Bauer does as torture, or am I referring to watching “24” as torture? Yes.)
you know what? i’ve had it with gavin’s discursive style.
i’m going galt from leaving comments on his turgid musings.
UPDATE 1: starting now.
UPDATE !!: Fuck, i mean starting now.
UPDATE eleventy: DOUBLE STUFFFUCKOREO, this is where it ends. you all can live without my clever comments from here on out.
PURELY LOGISTICAL UPDATE THAT IS NOT PART OF A “COMMENT”: idaho is nice. i like my cabin. i have a gun. no one will take it from me. and my robot.
That jerk!
When your body’s had enough of me
And I’m laying flat out on the floor
When you think I’ve gone Galt all I can
I’m gonna go Galt a little bit more
Can anybody but Mickey Kaus blow the goat for a change? Maybe somebody with more charisma and visual appeal. I’m thinking Carey Roberts, maybe.
Wow. That wuz impressive.
The first step to fixing our political system is to stop paying the “politician tax”….
Politicians are not like the rest of us…. they are keenly obsessed with “getting elected” as a measure of success, but although this would seem to suggest that they should care about representing the views of the electors — the people — it doesn’t work out that way. With extremely rare exceptions, politicians preserve their interests by serving their party (whichever one it is) over the people, and by serving corporate interests and other special interests next to that, also over the people…. so where do we fit in?
They see us as votes and money, and many of us are suckers…. how many of you donated money to a politician or a party last year? The sad truth is that whatever you did donate was actually a tax imposed by the system through blackmail, one that you didn’t have to pay at all, but volunteered…. I have to admit, I’m in that crowd, even though I only gave to Libertarian candidates (who all lost) and the amount I donated amounted to pocket change even in their meager coffers…. but I’d take it back if I could….
Look at it this way: imagine there are two bullies on your block, and both want to take your lunch money…. each says that if you “voluntarily” pay him, he’ll protect you from the other one, and each one talks up how dangerous the other one is in order to convince you to buy protection… but the truth is, if you learn to defend yourself you don’t have to give a penny to either of them.
That’s what the Republicrats do — each side uses the other as a threat to pry your dollars away in the form of campaign donations, and the first and biggest thing WE can do to eliminate donation-driven corruption from the system is to turn off that voluntary faucet of cash flowing out of our pockets.
In short: DO NOT GIVE ANY MONEY TO POLITICIANS!! not to a candidate, not to a campaign, not to a party, and if you can help it, not to a company that will pass it on to any of those (even a company that will hedge its bets by giving to both sides; in fact, especially such a company)…. clean up our politics, do NOT pay the politician tax!!