The American Freedom Network

Time To Shrug, Atlas

I live in Michigan.  Like the defenders of Wake Island, McCain left conservatives here to their own fate, abandoning the state when it became clear that his only road to Pennsylvania Ave. led through the Keystone State.  Not that Mac was even a nominal conservative… Guns?  John Dingell is as sound on the Second Amendment.  Pro-life?  Yes, but as a vote, not as a leader – David Bonior is pro-life, too, and he’s a near-socialist.  His apostasy on so-called “Campaign Finance Reform” was followed by another on amnesty, and yet another on the bailout, and then there’s the war, which was a diversion from the real task at hand, namely, bin Laden’s head on a stick, at Ground Zero.  So, I voted my concience – Chuck Baldwin, of the Constitution Party.  But, I digress…
So, Brarak is poised for clover.  What now?  He wants “to spread the wealth around.”  What follows does not apply to those trying to make ends meet, but rather to those who can afford to be afraid for their pocketbooks.  Adopt the advice of Epicurius, and seek happieness in a life of few and simple pleasures.  If you don’t need the overtime or the second job, get rid of it.  Earn less.  That means that they have less to tax.  Exchange services with family, friends, church members, etc., instead of paying cash.  Get out, in other words, of the cash economy, to the extent that you can afford to.  Does anyone need HBO?  How about movies?  The new ones are usually a slap in the face to the morals of decent Americans – deny them your business.  Deny support to charities that are in bed with the government, such as those who buy into ‘faith-based’ collaboration with the abnegation of faith – Washington, DC.  Spend less, work less, pay less in taxes, and you thus forge fewer links in the chains of bondage.
Living simply means living happily.  Like the song says, “It’s not having what you want, it’s wanting what you have.”  It translates into reduced economic activity, as economists measure it, and less tax revenue for Obama to spread around. Giving uip overtime and cable TV can’t be bad to begin with; shedding things like that to deny Obama your earnings by empowering yourself to work less is even better.
My title is an obvious play on Any Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged.”  Her name pops up more often now, and I think that it’s because people see our descent into socialism (and facism) as emblemic of what she warned against.  Her Atlases, the brains, the meritocracy, the doers of her fictional America, hastened the end of their state by refusing to bear the world upon their shoulders any more.  They were flipping burgers, gone fishing, turned to piracy, etc., and no longer striving against the odds to create what the moochers would take from them.  No Randian myself, I find her message n onetheless timely, and her advice compelling.  As I noted earlier, amny who would do this cannot, as they have no luxuries to spare, and thus must continue to work as hard as ever.  But for the rest, perhaps this is the most effective strategy, as it means that they cannot use your productive powers to empower themselves to enslave you.  Or, as La Boiete said, “Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once free.  I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant, but only that you cease to obey him, and you will see him, like some Colossue, topple over of his own weight and break into pieces.”  Resolve to serve no more, indeed! 
P.S.  If “Atlas Shrugged” were written today, Ragnar Daneskjold would be a hacker…