A friend gave me a book entitled “Remembering Reagan.” President Reagan would have been 100 years old last year and I remember him well. But most of the youth or recent immigrants do not even know who he was or what he meant to our country.
Ronald Reagan, in 1961 warned the American Medical Association of the dangers of socialized medicine. He also warned us at some future date we might be telling our children and grandchildren what it was like when we were free. However, even President Reagan was unable to reverse our rush to throw off the chains of liberty and dance to the siren song of “something for nothing.”
“Who is John Galt?” I think he was a worker exploited by his fellow workers. An entrepreneur whose most precious property was his mind, and secondarily the invention which arose from the ability of his mind. An individual who was having his property taken by majority vote of the group operating under “The Plan.” From those according to ability, to those according to need. A man of ability who walked away from that, taking his knowledge of the invention with him.
This is nothing new, it is only going to be new for us. Centralized plans are always the same. The planners names may change, the results do not. It may sound “new and improved,” but the words have all been said before. It has all been done before. It has all failed before.
Human nature is what it is, both virtue and vice. Governments have risen and fallen throughout time, usually violently, succumbing to the passions and vices of people. The founders of our form of government had studied human nature well; and knowing well the dangers inherent in democracies, presented for the people’s vote a representative republic. The people voted for that Constitution. Still, in years following they changed their minds and voted for democracy. The name did not change; the people did.
Who and what did John Galt take with him? I think the producers, the doers, the dreamers, the ethical, the moral, the uncorrupted, those who would not bow down, wealth, capital and sound money. The engine of capitalism. Who and what was left behind? Looters and moochers, debt and phony money. Engines with no one left to keep them running.
Was not equality of birth with a British King enough? Does life, liberty and pursuit of happiness no longer bring satisfaction to us? Did the blood spilled in the Revolution not convince us? Was the imperative fact that “No man has the right to govern another without his consent” written in the blood of our Civil War in vain? Did they all die so some of us can take the fruits of another man’s labor by majority vote? Did they die so we can have for free? Money is never free. Fair? What is fair about a progressive income tax? Justice for all is not enough, we want “social justice.” Charity is now “giving back.” The failure this time is called a “fiscal cliff,” and the blame is diverted.
It is true, the truth will set you free. But a foolish people will not vote for truth. A foolish people will vote for a fool’s paradise.
It was not a choice between left and right. It was a choice between right and wrong. Socialism sounds easy; capitalism, hard work.
Once a people become corrupt, the tyranny of the group becomes the tyranny of the few, and then the one.
The trouble with capitalism may indeed be capitalists. But the trouble with socialism is socialism itself. The trouble with utopia is that it does not exist. The trouble with Hell is that it does exist.
Linda Barber
