REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Where is John Galt?

POSTED BY: ELVISCHRIST
UPDATED: Friday, September 19, 2014 08:26
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VIEWED: 2036
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Wednesday, September 17, 2014 12:47 AM

ELVISCHRIST



Forget who, let's figure out WHERE the mythical "John Galt" has disappeared to!


Quote:

A community made up of American ex-pats deep in the South American hills of Chile – far away from America’s annoying taxes, healthcare mandate, and legal abortions — was supposed to be a libertarian paradise of rugged individualism. Instead it cost many of the people who bought into it almost everything, and now is buried under lawsuits — a reminder that everything that glitters is not inflation-proof, Ron Paul-backed gold.

It seems pretty obvious that basing one’s society on a single work of (poorly written) fiction is folly, but for many adherents of Ayn Rand and her seminal book of Objectivist allegorical grandstanding, Atlas Shrugged isn’t just any book. It’s about as close to the Bible that many libertarians have — apart from the Bible, of course. It’s influenced an astounding number of conservative public figures — from Ron Paul to Rand Paul to Ronald Reagan. Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney’s Rand-loving running mate and probable 2016 presidential contender, said it was his favorite book growing up.

...

For the price of $48,500 you too could own a piece of Galt’s Gulch (specifically, one-and-a-half acres of it). Amazingly, people cashed in their retirements and did just that.

A year later and things have completely unraveled. According to one person who spent a great deal of her savings on this grand experiment, the thing was doomed from the start. Based on her description, what you are left with is the growing sense that this isn’t just a case of arrogant stupidity, this is a downright scam.

Writing out of The Dollar Vigilante, a website devoted to the libertarian movement, the investor, Wendy McElroy, who describes herself as an individualist anarchist, documents the nightmare of Galt’s Gulch Chile:

Quote:

Many have wondered about the status of Galt’s Gulch Chile (GGC), the libertarian community that was planned and sold in lots as a liberty oasis for those who wished to live freedom before they died. My husband and I purchased an option on 1.25 acres in July 2013. Others bought 10- or 25-acre lots and some invested in the agricultural side of the venture; extremely savvy investors committed small fortunes. GGC has been an unexpectedly wild ride since then.


After throwing in considerable money, McElroy received an email from a concerned friend, essentially calling the entire operation into question. At first McElroy dismisses the email, at the harried assurance of Ken Johnson. Later, it begins to be apparent that the concerned friend was disturbingly on the money (emphasis added).

Quote:

There will be no zoning for the 1.25-acre lots or other arrangements of less than 10 acres. GGC is an environmentally protected area and it would take the political movement of heaven and earth to allow a community based on small lots to be officially approved. I had the opportunity to ask a question of the salesman who showed my husband and me “our property.” I claimed it because I fell head over heels for the most beautiful tree I’ve ever seen. I felt an instant connection as though the two of us were old souls who had found each other. I could believe it, I could see it… waking up each morning and having coffee under that tree, telling it about my plans for the day. Months later, in a Skype conference, I asked the then-GGC-alienated salesman, “When you ‘sold’ us the property, when you printed out a photo from your phone that read ‘Wendy’s tree,’ did you know you could not legally sell us the lot you were offering?” He said, “That is correct.”


...

Meanwhile, Galt’s Gulch owes “hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars to hardware stores [and] service providers” in Chile for work done in preparation for the community. As the pyramid scheme of investors collapses, it seems likely that those workers – many of them poor laborers from small Chilean towns — will go unpaid. The workers being ripped off by the moochers? How very Randian.

The Grim Reaper lingers nearby. By the end of August, the entire online existence of Galt’s Gulch Chile had been scrubbed from the web. Every promotional YouTube video made to entice suckers freedom-lovers has been taken down. The GGC website comes back with an error message. Ken Johnson is in the wind.

It’s almost as if basing a community around people who hate other people and don’t want to have to pay for any services that don’t directly and concretely benefit themselves is inherently unstable. Who would have thought?



http://www.addictinginfo.org/2014/09/15/libertarian-utopia-styled-afte
r-ayn-rand-book-spectacularly-falls-apart-almost-immediately
/


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Wednesday, September 17, 2014 1:49 AM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


This is just bizarre. The people who believe in the supremacy of the superior individual didn't bother to do due diligence?

The need to believe makes fools of us all.




SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

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Wednesday, September 17, 2014 9:01 PM

FREMDFIRMA



HERE is your Jonn Galt, and all the truth of him.
Child rapist.
Child murderer.
Sociopathic Scumbag.
And yet, despite this, WORSHIPPED by objectivists.

http://www.alternet.org/story/145819/ayn_rand%2C_hugely_popular_author
_and_inspiration_to_right-wing_leaders%2C_was_a_big_admirer_of_serial_killer?paging=off

Quote:

This is the "amazing picture" Ayn Rand -- guru to the Republican/Tea Party right-wing -- admired when she wrote in her notebook that Hickman represented "the amazing picture of a man with no regard whatsoever for all that a society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. A man who really stands alone, in action and in soul. Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should."

THIS is the monstrosity they hold as an ideal.

Is it any wonder that I despise them with every fibre of my being ?

-Frem

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Thursday, September 18, 2014 1:58 AM

ELVISCHRIST


Quote:

Originally posted by FREMDFIRMA:

HERE is your Jonn Galt, and all the truth of him.
Child rapist.
Child murderer.
Sociopathic Scumbag.
And yet, despite this, WORSHIPPED by objectivists.
-Frem




"Despite this?" Hell, BECAUSE OF THIS!

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Thursday, September 18, 2014 7:40 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!


False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.

Socrates


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Thursday, September 18, 2014 2:11 PM

ELVISCHRIST


Quote:

Originally posted by AURaptor:
False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.

Socrates





Yes, her evil has infected many conservatives. You're right about that.

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Thursday, September 18, 2014 4:27 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!



Too bad you can't explain to us what she said was 'evil'.

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Thursday, September 18, 2014 4:44 PM

STORYMARK


Her false words.... How short is your memory, anyway?

Quick, raise your hand if you're not surprised that rappy wasn't able to follow!



“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'”? Isaac Asimov

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Thursday, September 18, 2014 4:54 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!


raises hand.


As I never said "HER" false words, I guess the joke is you, Storybook.



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Thursday, September 18, 2014 5:52 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


Quote:

Originally posted by Storymark:
Her false words.... How short is your memory, anyway?

Quick, raise your hand if you're not surprised that rappy wasn't able to follow!


Raises hand.
Since RapKnight is reasonable, I am not surprised that he has difficulty following the delusions you partake in. I also would not be surprised that your fellow delusionaries have no problem following you through your menagerie.

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Thursday, September 18, 2014 11:27 PM

ELVISCHRIST


Quote:

Originally posted by AURaptor:

Too bad you can't explain to us what she said was 'evil'.





Too bad you can't speak English. Or is it that you've never read Rand?


What did Ayn Rand say was evil? Altruism.

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Thursday, September 18, 2014 11:45 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!


Yeah, other folks are fully entitled to take your stuff, huh?

Wanna try again?

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Friday, September 19, 2014 12:36 AM

ELVISCHRIST


Quote:

Originally posted by AURaptor:
Yeah, other folks are fully entitled to take your stuff, huh?

Wanna try again?





Try what again, exactly?


Did she or did she not claim that altruism is evil? You asked what she said. I responded.


And you don't seem to have a clue what the word "altruism" means, so maybe you should stop posting until you look it up, nitwit.


Besides, you didn't ask for a debate on the merits of altruism; you asked what Rand said was evil.

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Friday, September 19, 2014 8:26 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!


Quote:

Originally posted by ElvisChrist:
Quote:

Originally posted by FREMDFIRMA:

HERE is your Jonn Galt, and all the truth of him.
Child rapist.
Child murderer.
Sociopathic Scumbag.
And yet, despite this, WORSHIPPED by objectivists.
-Frem




"Despite this?" Hell, BECAUSE OF THIS!



False words...

I know what the word altruism means, but do YOU know what Rand was talking about when she called it evil ?

This discussion is getting off the beaten path some what, and I suspect that's what you want. The 'false words' you and others want to spread here have more to do w/ the imagined model of John Galt , and all that Rand was promoting. You're engaging in the worst sort of propaganda and dishonestly, and you know it.

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