Yes, inspiration and motivation, for myself as well. Ever since it's been "okay, now what can we DO with this?,, which continues to this day!

I'm not "religious" in any typical sense, but maybe we all need some sort of bible to cling to!

Well, the simple answer is most human being unaware of any alternative to being Governed by Force. Of course, no really opts to be governed by force, but no one resists it, because what's the alternative? If you don't know, then there is nothing to be done.

No economist is perfect. The story is told of a economics Ph.D. student studying for his "prelim"s (the final exams before the writing of the dissertation). He was studying intently when his roommate handed him a piece of paper; when he read it he remarked that it would be a good study guide. The roommate replied that it was not a guide but the actual prelim exam, When the time for the exam came, the student approached the professor and asked to disqualify himself because he had already seen the exam. The professor remarked, "Don't worry, you can take the exam. This is economics. We haven't changed the questions in decades -- we just change the answers."

Almost all of us can tell the same story. I never thought to call Atlas a bible, but it certainly was and is an inspiration that continues to inspire. Then, reading Rand's non-fiction which revealed the mind behind the stories gave me not only inspiration but motivation.

While I don't think you're wrong, my article is way beyond "what or how people think". Regardless of what they "think", we are headed into the deepest pile of dung ever. From that we must find a moral way out.

True, but that's not how it's been worked out!

Kennedy did himself in at inauguration with "ask not what your country can do for you--ask what you can do for your country."
That was shortly after I read Atlas Shrugged, twice in a row. That became my "bible".

The proper function of government is to protect the rights of the individual from violation of his rights by others, not to "minimize friction" and enforce the "welfare of others" and "order" without "too much complexity".

The 'only question' is of recognizing that man is the rational animal who must use his reason to think and choose for his own life as the basis of ethics and therefore politics. Regarding man as no more than monkeys wanting the same banana while hoping the one on top will miraculously honor rights is hopeless.

What I've learned is that GG wants to be paid if one is allowed to use the apparent full privileges of this side. Can't blame it, it's certainly objective!

But becoming a "Producer" his doesn't fit either my situation or my motivation.

So what's happened here has apparently sent exactly nobody to trouble to read my source post, and I see my little effort coming to naught. I had hoped to trigger discussion on that link, but again it's drifting all over the map. So it's not working. Guess I need to steal away into the night.

All governments use force. Government by its nature is a monopoly on force. The question is what it is to be used for under what purpose of government.

The proper purpose of government is to protect the rights of individuals from coercion by others, in accordance with objective law under limited powers of government to prevent the government from becoming the criminal. That is based on an ethics of rational self interest in which it is recognized that man has the capacity to and must think for himself to make choices in his own life for his own life. See Ayn Rand's "The Nature of Government" and "The Objectivist Ethics".

An ethics of duty and self sacrifice implies self sacrifice enforced by government. An epistemology of faith leads to force, with no other means to resolve disputes. See Ayn Rand's "Faith and Force".

Those who lack rationality lack self confidence in their own ability to think and deal with reality. Their lack of self esteem makes them willing to submit to others to make 'expert' judgments and to impose the self destructive ethics they lack the integrity to live by themselves. They expect others to sacrifice to them under the same ethics, and having lost all distinction between rational persuasion and force, and with no confidence in their own rationality, they resort to pressure group warfare and collectivism.

The answer is a philosophy of reason and individualism, which began in the Enlightenment but which was undermined by traditionalism. It's not a matter of thinking that people by nature inherently want "other people's stuff". See Ayn Rand's For the New Intellectual.

Hayek was a utilitarian who supported welfare statism himself.

True, nearly anyone opts for a forceful government but they get it by the desire for trust. Trust is a social function which overtly seems to require all kinds of mutual traditions. Clubs, church attendance, various forms of handshaking, hugging, union membership, eating rituals, sleeping rituals, military rituals, and many other forms of collective orderliness. The fear of not belonging results in small little belonging collectives which never seem to be large enough to remove the emotional disquiet of being alone. Then there is clamor for government to persuade people to act in certain ways and to quit acting in other ways. First sort of humanely with promises of goodies but since people need a little persuading, little by little the people allow government to use more and more force to protect the collective trust.
In my case, I had a great fear of getting involved in group activity even eating at the table when I was very young. I tried to avoid structured group activity in physical education and group activity in school. I had no problem with learning things. In collage I only had trouble in physical ed and ROTC which were structured group activities. I like individual on individual discussions but when group membership is required, I go elsewhere. I went Galt around 1972 when I received notice that I would have to register with the NSF and ACS due to being a chemist since I only would want my employer and myself judging my work. I was also doing number theory and it became evident that the NSA was cracking down on publications by some number theorists. So I went into a one person business to earn my way. I tried opting our of Medicare by just doing odd jobs and just paying income tax but after a few years I got a letter from IRS threatening jail if I did not pay up the back self employment taxes. So I collect the $653.00 a month of social security and watch the interest from my small IRA, with which I paid my real estate taxes reduce by 80% due to the Fed interfering with interest rates and money supply.
For those of you searching for a safe cushy society you will just get pain and suffering in the future by asking government to provide it for you.

I think it is more conditioning than stupidity. Look, my family all were working class democrats. I read The Fountainhead which set my steps on a different path, but it took a while for me to de-program myself. I voted for Kennedy, which was my last vote on the left. But millions never step off the path they were born into.

It looks like the hatred is for themselves for giving in so easily, but it's transferred to the ones who stand on their own 2 feet, and show them up for the cowards they are. You see the same thing in grade school, when the kid who gets the A's is the hated one. It starts early.

Dean: It seems to me that different people have a wide variety of reasons why they are willing to have a strong central government controlling many aspects of everyone (else's!!) life. If you are not familiar with Jonathan Haidt's work, check out his "The Righteous Mind." As an Objectivist, I don't agree with him on ways he implies that the human mind should work, but he does provide a lot of insight into the way many people think. As an example, many people are driven largely for concern about safety and security and they seem quite willing to let anyone (specifically government and politicians running for office) offering to provide more of it lead public policy. It isn't just about people wanting more free stuff as others here in the Gulch have proposed. That is part of it, for sure, but that is not what motivates all progressives.

If you really do want to understand what many here would consider the enemy, you could do far worse than to read what Haidt has to say on the matter.

And, it isn't just about "understanding" the enemy. It is about understanding what can help swing them from the dark side to the right side.

The In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida Syndrome, first recognized in 1968 and.which became more commonly known, in 1969, as the Woodstock Disease.

The significant symptom is the belief that, as long as you take (with loving intention,) there will always be someone willing to give, (with the same loving intention)...forever and ever...and, only then, will there be peace in the world.

Unfortunately for people suffering from the delusions of the Woodstock Disease, they don't realize that although all men may be born as equals...what they choose to do, as they grow as individuals results in a wonderful inequality of intellectual capacity, personality, ambition, drive, ability to love, care, understand, produce...and so forth.

So the fatal flaw is that the only way to obtain the crazy version of equality that is envisioned for the masses by the affected individual (which the delusional individual truly does not believe will affect him, adversely, in any way) is by force.

...and so, like the proverbial boiling frog, the individual, believing in their altruistic fantasy, is surprised to suddenly wake up as they are being marched toward the ovens.

In his 1944 book "The Road to Serfdom," Nobel Laureate F.A.Hayek describes the path from reason and freedom to faith and force. Dedicated to "The Socialists of All Parties," Hayek traces the growth of government involvement to a well-intended and democratic desire to incrementally perfect a society -- a modest change here, a new law or regulation there -- with each do-gooder having but one or two improvements to implement. Then comes the math with thousands of do-gooders creating Utopia. All the machinery is in place, awaiting the advent of the tyrant.

As I recall, it was Robert Ringer in his 1973 book "Looking Out for #1" (in which he credits Ayn Rand) who stated that the three functions of government are (1) to make you do something you do not want to do, (2) to keep you from doing something you do want to do, and (3) to take away what is rightfully yours.

There are few enduring human communities that aren't ultimately governed by force. Forcible compliance with a society's rules of order is usually the last resort in a civil society, when persuasion by other means fails.

Ideally, a perfect citizen would vigorously comply with a reasonable set of rules intended to minimize friction with other citizens, and if society was composed of nothing but perfect citizens, no force would be needed. Unfortunately, humans are imperfect, and some disregard the well being of others, or the need for order. Those imperfect citizens are the ones most likely to need the use of force to impose compliance.

Where the element of force goes awry is when the rules of order become too complex and numerous for even the model citizen to comply with, and the state mechanism begins to treat all citizens as suitable to feel the force of the state's power. We reached that point quite a while ago.

Most people don't even realize that they are governed by force as you put it. They still hold the government as a benevolent entity even when they act blatantly against their citizens. You see it all around you with every law, every regulation, and every executive order.

So long as two monkeys want the same banana, there will be government-by-force. The only questions are who's on top and what rights do they choose to honor.

Eric Fromm, "Escape from Freedom (1941)" "However, a common substitute for exercising "freedom to" or authenticity (be an individual) is to submit to an authoritarian system that replaces the old order with another of different external appearance but identical function for the individual: to eliminate uncertainty by prescribing what to think and how to act."