Could Galt's Gulch Have Open Borders?
No free society, let alone a libertarian one, can long survive if it actively welcomes those who would undermine its institution and culture. Such tolerance is the Achilles heel of open societies, and why they all eventually are undermined by nefarious forces, banksters, gangsters, communists, neocons, theocons, etc. Until a method is worked out for preserving freedom while maintaining openness and tolerance for diversity, open-border libertarians are never going to be taken seriously in politics. We are today, exactly in the situation we are in politically and financially, due to the mass importation of communists, anarchists, Trotskyites, Keynesians, Marxists, Maoists, monarchists, neo-feudalists, religious dogmatists, and so forth, as laborers for big business during the industrial revolution. None of these people had any respect nor commitment for the founding classical liberal or Unitarian values of the nation, and they promptly set about remaking America into the fouled up countries they had left behind.
I couldn't agree more. Our entertainment and the MSM News we are subjected to not only reflects but influences. The culture needs a shock to the system... an infusion of reason.
Regards,
O.A.
My view of the illegal alien invasion is almost certainly different from everyone here. My experience of it is probably different. All I will say is that I vehemently disagree with the myth perpetrated that the illegal invaders are decent, hardworking folk just trying to survive.
My solution to that particular problem has always been; as they may be within the jurisdiction of the U.S., they are not UNDER the jurisdiction of the U.S.. Therefore, remove them from the protection of law. If someone commits a crime and can prove the victim was in the country illegally, he gets a pass.
They will self deport... and quickly.
However, yes, many who are coming here from other countries, particularly illegally, have statist attitudes... why wouldn't they, when they were raised in "authoritarian" societies such as Mexico?
I use the term "authoritarian" loosely, because in places like Mexico the "authority" might well be a drug lord, or your employer. Bosses and peons.
I didn't tell the whole thing because it was all in my mind to entertain myself, and I didn't want to fill pages here with it. sorry. :(
I'm well aware of that, from personal experience.
However, I'm talking about the modern "lower classes". They aren't, in my experience, by and large, particularly principled.
An example; in the break room, there's a candy machine with a glitch. If you turn the handle back and forth, you can work yourself some M&Ms or peanuts out of it w/o paying. I've seen many different people do it many different times. Not one recognized that he was guilty of repeated petty theft. Forget the legal aspect of it.
About the time the protesters were demanding $15/hour at McDonald's, a co-worker was complaining that that's what he should be getting (I've stated elsewhere where I work, I don't want to give them too much opportunity to notice and fire me). He's doing the same job he's done for over 5 years, and he thinks that alone entitles him to more money *above the regular raises he's received each year*.
He's a nice guy, and fairly intelligent, too, but I argued with him and could not get through to him the connection between production and profit.
People I overhear talking in fast food places, at the store, co-workers... the vast majority seem clueless about value-for-value. Maybe some of them, maybe all of them, are rich as Midas... but I wouldn't bet on it.
My thought is that people who don't "get" value for value tend to stay poor because they don't have the... philosophical tools, for want of a better term, to create wealth for themselves.
Seriously, I believe there is a "class" that's been developed in the U.S. over the past century that has a cargo cult mentality. The gods of money (usually equated with the government) mean for them to have the money, but evil entities like Walmart and McDonald's interecept the cargo and keep it for themselves.
How can you become successful, either professionally or financially, when you think like that?
The gulch "runners" are aware of anyone who recognizes value for value and living life for one's self because of their love of it. I was never under the idea that they were looking for only rich people. OMG I know so many "educated" "well-off" people who couldn't be more clueless. This has not a thing to do with a person's "station" it has to do with how they think...being principled can actually make you less wealthy, because you're not willing to sell yourself out for a nice paycheck (I include myself in this example)...I left behind good pay and benefits to work a job I love (or loved, but that's another story).
Rand TOTALLY knew that there were some in the 'lower classes" that 'got it' AND that the others would become ravenous for other peoples money. As for 'digging themselves out of the lower classes"...who are you to say that they aren't happy where they are...and still 'get it'?
A man appears in the valley, bedraggled, half dead, and is confronted by the inhabitants... because he came there to kill Francisco D'Anconia.
It comes from part of the book I don't get. Francisco ruins all the people who invested in his company. But that would include thousands of innocents who invested in the company because they believed in *him*. I was always given to understand that people investing in stocks provide capital for companies to expand and grow. Why does this deserve punishment?
Anyway, so he's there, having been thwarted from killing Francisco, on his knees in the street because his strength fails him, surrounded by Galt, Ragnar, Midas and Francisco, tears streaming down his face in pain, anger and frustration, his world having been destroyed. He explains how hard he'd worked at his job, and at every attempt to earn promotion, to get ahead, he was thwarted. How he'd then gone without, skipping meals even, to get enough money to invest in D'Anconia Global Commodities, because he'd followed Francisco's life since before he became a playboy and admired him. And then his hero ruined him, taking everything he had.
Ragnar has a gun to his head, and is about to deliver the coup de grace because they can't let him out to tell about the valley, and to coerce him to tell them how he followed Francisco to the valley, when Francisco kneels before the man, eyes locked, and quietly says, "I have done you a great harm, and for that I ask your forgiveness.
"Raise your right hand. No, keep looking into my eyes, and repeat after me:
"I swear by my life and my love of it..."
Elsewhere I mention Dagny Taggart's opinion of the "common workers" whom she gathers to hold signal lanterns when the power goes out... which changes when she see John Galt among them.
Cherryl is a prime example of someone who "gets" it and comes from the lower classes.
However, I suspect Rand never imagined the lower classes becoming the animals they are becoming. It's my opinion that the vast majority of the lower classes, in real life, can't get the philosophy. That's why they're stuck in the lower classes. We'll find out if people in the lower classes like me can "get it" and subsequently dig themselves out of the lower classes.
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