Now, it’s been a while since I read Atlas Shrugged (Hey, it was going around when I was in high school.  Kind of like mono.)  But if I remember correctly, the whole point of the end of the book was that the Galtians abandoned the society they hated, retreated to the mountains or something, and SET UP A NEW UTOPIA OF THEIR OWN.  I suspect that the whole dreary novel would have been a lot less impressive to my 15-year-old self if the last 100 pages had consisted of the Galt-ites threatening to run away from home if everyone keeps acting like this.  Over and over again, like a cranky toddler.  And with no sign of giving us all a fucking break and just GOING for chrissakes.

What “going Galt” was originally supposed to mean: People of exceptional brilliance and usefulness to society will drop out, resulting in a collective feeling of loss on the part of society for being so mean to the people of exceptional brilliance that they can no longer benefit from their exceptional brilliance, prompting social change to make the climate of society more tolerable for people of exceptional brilliance.

What “going Galt” has come to mean in the last 2 months: Making a big show about how smart and important you are and how you’re going to leave and everyone will be sorry, and when everyone shrugs and says “whatever” you spend all the time you would have spent leaving so that they can get to the “being sorry” part by instead complaining that they’re not paying adequate attention to your threats to leave.

Fucking Objectivists. They are given every opportunity to not act like a bunch of spotty idiot highschoolers, and they fail every time.

Who was it that said that “going Galt” is the conservative equivalent of liberals threatening to move to Canada after Bush won?

And it has to do with recognizing an important fact about the conflict between your average producer and your average functionally anti-freedom person: neither one has their heart in this fight the way their opponent fears they do.

Translation: “I’m at least as much of a weak, craven douche as I accuse everyone else of being.”

Is it being overly cynical of me to say that the Galt-goers aren’t the essential pinnacles of society that they think they are? Oh, wait, no, it’s really blindingly obvious.

What’s more sensible is that they haven’t quite twigged to the ridiculous fantasy Atlas Shrugged really is, despite their continual Rand-cunnilingusing.

Ebonmuse—I think the key difference was that liberals who threatened to move to Canada (and I admit I was one—we couldn’t get the education thing to work out so we moved to the closest blue state we could find to Canada) are different in that they aren’t premising their threat on the condition that everyone will be OH SO SORRY when they’ve left. Going Galt is basically stomping your feet and declaring that you’re awesome and that people will recognize what a sweet thing they’re losing once you’re gone. Declaring your intention to move to Canada is pretty much that: You no longer feel that you are represented by your country, you cannot abide with the direction the country has turned, and you no longer wish your tax dollars to support the policies your country has enacted. I suppose if I wanted to take a very elevated view of the meager amount of taxes I pay—a real drop in the ocean of the country’s yearly revenue, then you could say that our intention to move to Canada was a threat not unlike Galt’s threat, except I didn’t really think of it that way because while my ego is quite large, it’s not that large and I know that my departure would really not have been missed at the societal level.

So really, the difference between Going Galt and Moving to Canada is this:

When your boyfriend dumps you and declares that no one else will ever love you and that you’ll be sorry that you didn’t go down on him more when you find out what assholes other men are, that’s Going Galt.

When your girlfriend leaves you because you’ve been starting fights, gambling away rent money, threatening the neighbors children and calling her an ugly bitch, she’s Moving to Canada.

See the difference, there?

If they ever do try to stop the nation by going on strike are we allowed to sic the pinkertons on them?  This is an important question

Well said.

In a lot of online communities, there’s a phenomenon known as the Huff: other posters/commenters/whoever insult/disappoint/ignore the huffer so viciously that the only possible response is to leave that benighted corner of cyberspace. “You’re all rotten and miserable and I’m leaving now.” “I’m really leaving and not coming back.” “You People have driven me out, and you should be ashamed of yourselves.” “I’m really absolutely positively going.” “This is your last chance to ask me to stay.” “Positively your last chance.” “Maybe that last thing I posted got swallowed by the database.” “I’m going now, and I’m only going to stop by every few days to see how much you’re all missing me.” “I’m gone.” “I’m not here anymore.” “Still gone.”

And so forth.

And that’s even before the utopia breaks down irretrievably when a dozen masterfully brilliant personalities all have different, absolutely unassailably brilliant ideas about what color to paint the front gate.

And it has to do with recognizing an important fact about the conflict between your average producer and your average functionally anti-freedom person: neither one has their heart in this fight the way their opponent fears they do.

Heart?  I here I thought the Galtoids constructed adversaries who feared that they lacked brains.

Gee, if he could only make the step from “doesn’t have their heart in the fight” to ” society isn’t really the oppressive, talent-hating, genius-abusing, individuality-suppressing mass of drones Ayn Rand has scared her followers into believing in.”

He’s approaching sanity. Just think a little harder, Objectivist dude!

Some of my Liberal friends *wished* they could emigrate to Canada or New Zealand, but we were sensible to know it was only a daydream.  We stayed and elected Obama.  And, alas, Reid & Pelosi.  I hope that’ll be rectified soon.

And it has to do with recognizing an important fact about the conflict between your average producer and your average functionally anti-freedom person: neither one has their heart in this fight the way their opponent fears they do.

Actually, we do have the heart.  Please deprive us of your company; we will suffer along without you.  You are “producers” in the same sense that a bull’s anus is “a producer”.

There are people who had the heart to fight, but they were called ecoterrorists for their efforts to “smash the state” and were imprisoned for their heartfelt acts of destruction.

Ms Kate:

All that proves is that you need heart AND brains. The typical monkeywrencher tends to show themselves as being rather ignorant about what they claim to be defending.

the conflict between your average producer and your average functionally anti-freedom person

What do normal people call those groups?

On rereading, I see he said “functionally anti-freedom”; liberals aren’t fascists, just sheeple.

I went Galt once.
I was 8 years old and was angry with my parents over something or other.  I decided to deprive them of my sparkling conversation and valuable insights for 24 hours and refused to talk to them.
After about 3 hours, I realized that no one but me seemed to notice!

When your boyfriend dumps you and declares that no one else will ever love you and that you’ll be sorry that you didn’t go down on him more when you find out what assholes other men are, that’s Going Galt.

No, no, he threatens to leave.  He’s too much of a wuss to actually do so because he secretly fears that no other woman will put up with his bullshit.

There are people who had the heart to fight, but they were called ecoterrorists for their efforts to “smash the state” and were imprisoned for their heartfelt acts of destruction.

Huh?  Has a troll taken over your name?  We’ve had a string of firebombings against UCLA researchers out here and I find it hard to believe that you would approve of people attacking university professors and research staff.

These people are all pussies. The only way to truly “Go Galt” is to cut your feet off and throw them at liberals. Until they do that, they’re snivelling little commies. Chernyenko waits for them to come home to hugs, and commie kisses.

And it has to do with recognizing an important fact about the conflict between your average producer and your average functionally anti-freedom person: neither one has their heart in this fight the way their opponent fears they do.

Accepting for a moment his division of people into two camps (though, of course, he ludicrously mislabels them), he’s also totally wrong here.  We on the other side are totally, cynically convinced that he and his don’t have their heart in the fight.  That’s why our rallying cry, to the extent that we noticed the entire ‘Going Galt’ nonsense, was, ‘Do it already, you big coward!  What’s keeping you?’

The whole point of Going Galt was that it would be rich people who actually were important who up and left. People like Richard Branson or Steve Jobs or Bill Gates*, not some dipshit on the Internet. No one cares if there’s fewer of them tomorrow. It’s not Going Galt if we want you to leave. Now! Like, five minutes ago! Go! GOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

* I’m pretending, for the sake of argument that these people would A) just up and leave careers and companies they clearly love just to prove a point an obscure point that a good accountant could fix and B) that it would actually matter. The entire fortune 500 list could croak tomorrow on bad caviar at the Bilderburger meet up and the world would still go on. And so would their companies. CEOs aren’t really all that important and they all will one day go to the great Galt’s Gulch in the sky, so abandoning their chair on the board of trustees because they felt like being petulant little shits amounts to the same thing as dieing.

Oddly, the Galters and the adoption folks from the earlier post are peas in a pod - they both assume that everyone is fundamentally truly great or truly evil, with no gray space in between for the definitional mediocrity that defines the great mass of humanity; it allows them to raise even these sort of breath-holding demands for pudding and binkies to the level of great ideological struggles.

I, ever being the optimist, sense progress. He has admietted mowto himself and even to others, that real people are not the cardboard figures out of Ayn Rand novels.

That is a first step, and perhaps I can encourage a second step:

“The cemetaries of France are full of indispensable people.” said Charles de Gaulle. Can you interpret this for us, oh great producer and inventor? (Yes, you are allowed to use “reason”)

These people are all pussies

My pussy is offended by the comparison.  Take your misogynistic insults elsewhere.

Another difference I think between Galters and Canada people is this. Some Canada people actually went including me. It took me 8 years, but I’m living in Denmark for two years learning all I can on how the people here prevented stupids like those who destroyed America so I can hopefully bring some back.

Basically, the difference is that Galters want to remain in the game because they know the regions based on their policies are hellholes to live in whereas the Canada people were all trying to move to someplace better where if they returned they knew they’d be going to a place where they’d have to decrease their quality of life to continue fighting the good fight.

But yeah, I’ve never heard a group of people whine so much about quitting their jobs (I mean isn’t that the poetic cliche, wherein you quit your high-paying job with the money you’ve accumulated so far to live a more meager life doing things you actually want to do, otherwise known as early retirement), especially not so much after a period of time where they were single-handedly responsible by their economic theories to the complete downfall of the global economy.

Seriously, this is all very, you can’t fire me, I quit, followed up by three weeks of begging for their old job back.

Galters want to remain in the game because they know the regions based on their policies are hellholes to live in

Take a Vacation from Regulation! Celebrate Freedom in a beautiful, sunny land that’s utterly, totally free from SOCIALISM!

(Here is some background.)

keshmeshi —naturally—but I was talking about the pure phenomenon, not this impotent posturing.

>>>the conflict between your average producer and your average functionally anti-freedom person

What do normal people call those groups?

I don’t know about normal people, but *I* call them, respectively, the proletariat and bosses.

Libertarian, it would help if copies of Atlas Shrugged and the other works of Rand weren’t published with a bunch of tear-out “Do you want to learn more about Objectivism?” postcards. Like Scientology.

“Some people seem to be confused about Atlas Shrugged.
They missed the fact that it was a work of fiction.
And confused it for a drivers manual of sorts.”

Rand created that pile of dreck as a delivery vehicle for her Objectivist political philosophy, and promoted it as such.  So it seems you might be the one confused.

“I don’t believe Ayn Rand went Galt, did she?”

No, but “Going Galt” isn’t about actually exiting society with your brains and watching everyone suffer in your absence.  it’s about threatening to leave.  And Rand was probably aware, at some level at least, that the exit of one more D-grade novelist and philosopher would go unnoticed. 

“Where would you go to do that anyway?  It was a lot easier to imagine in Rand’s time.”

...your imagination is the only place you could go, the real world operating under a completely different set of rules from those laid down by Ms. Rand…

The reasoning is very simple.  People like this say they will leave as a threat to us, but they realize that no one would actually miss them if they were gone.  They must know because we’ve told them so many times that they are not particularly important to a functioning society.  But they don’t actually want to leave, because they benefit more than they lose from living in a society.  These people don’t want to leave the comfort of the infrastructure that already exists.  They don’t want to have to install all new roads, sewer and water lines, and electrical lines in their new little club in the the middle of nowhere.  They don’t want to grow their own food, and they don’t want to set up the trade routes to bring food in if they can buy it.  They don’t want to have to work harder to find a market for whatever product or service they already produce.  It would be much harder for them to make money if they left society.  So they stand there in the doorway like a boyfriend who has already been dumped for being lazy and selfish, threatening to actually leave even though he knows he’s not wanted, hoping that someone will take pity on his feelings and ask him to stay just so he can feel important about himself.

That “explanation” is so tortured, I believe it is prohibited by the Geneva convention.

it has to do with recognizing an important fact about the conflict between your average producer and your average functionally anti-freedom person: neither one has their heart in this fight the way their opponent fears they do.

Uh…no.  YOU don’t have your heart where you think it should be.  The rest of us ‘anti-freedom people’ already figured out that you are dead weight and no loss.  That’s why we don’t care if you leave.  That’s why we’re not crying out and begging you to stay.

300 million people in the country, and they think that a bunch of anti-American whiners are irreplaceable.

What should really scare him, though, is that many of us ‘anti-freedom’ folk do have the courage of our convictions. 

liberals who threatened to move to Canada ...are different in that they aren’t premising their threat on the condition that everyone will be OH SO SORRY when they’ve left.

In that way, the Galters are a lot like the Rapture Ready crowd.  Neither is actually motivated by what they claim is their motivation (love of Christ’s teachings/incredible intellect and desire for liberty).  Both really just want to be declared ‘winners’ so they can say “Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah!  I was right!  You were wrong!  YOU’RE the LOSER!!!!111!!!!!1!”

Petty little entitled brats.

For any strike threat to work, it has to be credible. Hell, forget strikes; think of two opponents negotiating a treaty or a surrender: A tells B “You can give us what we want, or we can keep on fighting which will be worse for us but much worse for you.” For this to work, B has to know A is willing to keep on fighting.

He doesn’t seem to understand that he’s not “A” in the equation, but “B”.  Galters will be much worse off if they ‘leave’, while the rest of us won’t even notice.

There simply are not enough of them to matter.  The past election proves it.  Yes, they can keep stomping their feet like the sore losers they are, but to what real effect?

Not that we A-siders don’t have to stay vigilant and keep pushing for our agenda, but look at the GOP—>fighting over whether they are a the party of rich people or the party of theocrats.  Neither side likes the other much, and neither side wants to play nice with the rest of us and make their tent bigger.

I am addicted to Yahoo Answers the politics/election section. I am Happy!!! heehee

There are a number of douches that tag all their posts with “Who is John Galt” which is funny and sad.

I always end up mocking them and saying something nasty to them. What can I say making fun of stupid people makes me laugh.

This is starting to become like a husband who keeps threatening to get a divorce whenever he has a disagreement with his wife, but never does. But every time he REALLY means it, THIS time!

This is starting to become like a husband who keeps threatening to get a divorce whenever he has a disagreement with his wife, but never does. But every time he REALLY means it, THIS time!

But on top of that, his wife has already asked him to go.  And he says it while eating food that she cooked for him.

I was in 7th grade when I realized the “progressives” really were not against slavery. They were going to do whatever it took to eventually create a society where ever larger numbers of people have their every need met by a government, funded by an ever shrinking number of producers. My friends and I said it was all over when the Democrats could get 51% of the voters off of the income tax rolls. That day is here. Seeing this was inevitable over 40 years ago, I simply worked my ass off through school and for 30 years. I did well, made millions, paid the taxes during that time, kept my mouth shut, and retired at age 50. I live simply in a state with no income tax. I haven’t paid any federal income or social security tax in over 15 years. I live on 100 acres of forest land on an island. Property tax is $283 per year. Purchases are made over the internet to minimize sales taxes. We have a farmers coop where most of our food need are met through barter and exchange. We built a local solar power complex and a number of us are off the grid. We’re building an algae to biofuel facility to be self sufficient in our agricultural activities. My investments grow tax free. I went “Galt” in the sense that I pay very little to a government I do not believe in, am not a slave to unbounded social spending, and don’t care at all if society doesn’t miss me. You aren’t pissed off because of all the noise makers out there spouting off Rand-isms. What really grates on you is the possibility that even some small fraction of the slaves might actually be able to get away with not servicing your Borg like collectivist fantasies.

I did well, made millions, paid the taxes during that time, kept my mouth shut, and retired at age 50. I live simply in a state with no income tax. I haven’t paid any federal income or social security tax in over 15 years. I live on 100 acres of forest land on an island. Property tax is $283 per year. Purchases are made over the internet to minimize sales taxes. We have a farmers coop where most of our food need are met through barter and exchange. We built a local solar power complex and a number of us are off the grid. We’re building an algae to biofuel facility to be self sufficient in our agricultural activities. My investments grow tax free.

I’m 6 foot 5 with a 10 inch…

No wait..I’m a space man! *pew pew* /snark

The internet is fun!

My friends and I said it was all over when the Democrats could get 51% of the voters off of the income tax rolls.

Maybe you can explain something to me.  People keep trying to tell me that I don’t pay income tax because I make $40,000 a year.  If that’s the case, why is there a box on my W-2 form at the end of the year that says “Income Tax Paid”? 

If I don’t pay income tax, why is the government telling me that I paid income tax?  Is it all a lie? Are they taking that money and burning it in a big bonfire?  Is it going into the pocket of the head of the IRS?  Where is that “Income Tax Paid” money going if, as you say, I don’t pay income tax?

Conservatives are under the fantasy that the only taxtes that “count” are income taxes. Sales taxes, payroll taxes, property taxes…see, they’re not REALLY taxes because <Strike>the poor and middle class</strike> parasites pay them.

This is a ridiculously self-righteous and tortured explanation. He needs to settle down and admit what plenty of people who didn’t go to canada are willing to admit:

Opportunities in the US are pretty good and actually much better than anything you could find elsewhere. America will be helped or hurt less based on what Internet Tough Guys™ living in the US will do and more based on whether the US continues to attract and develop top talent.

Go-Galters fantasize themselves to be the equivalent of the elite of a third world country—the people who really are staying only because the nation caters to them and people who would leave (likely for the US) if they didn’t receive some kind of fealty and special privileges from the public in their nation of origin. But we’re not that third world country: the well-off here get more opportunities and make more money in the US than anywhere else. The Go-Galters just aren’t willing to give that up. And neither are the “flee to Canada” types, either.

I live on 100 acres of forest land on an island. Property tax is $283 per year.

I, on the other hand, just got back from driving up to a neighboring city to spent time with old friends, then hung out with a couple I know celebrating an engagement, and this weekend I’m volunteering at a cultural festival. Later this week I’m attending a concert downtown. While you’re better prepared for a zombie apocalypse than I am, I seem to live a more fulfilling life surrounded by friends and family.

My friends and I said it was all over when the Democrats could get 51% of the voters off of the income tax rolls. ...  Seeing this was inevitable over 40 years ago
20-30 years ago, you and your friends would have been angrily sputtering about how the Democrats were going to raise everyone’s taxes through the roof. Thus, I call BS on your story, as well as mocking you for having lame, lame, lame, “off the grid” fantasies.

“I live simply in a state with no income tax. I haven’t paid any federal income or social security tax in over 15 years. I live on 100 acres of forest land on an island. Property tax is $283 per year. Purchases are made over the internet to minimize sales taxes. We have a farmers coop where most of our food need are met through barter and exchange. We built a local solar power complex and a number of us are off the grid. We’re building an algae to biofuel facility to be self sufficient in our agricultural activities. My investments grow tax free.”

While i suspect strongly that this is a steaming pile of bullshit, let’s assume you’re telling the truth.

How do you pay for your Internet access?  Where do you get food during the winter and how do you pay for it?  Where did you get the money to build your “local solar power complex”?  How do you pay your property tax?  How do you pay for fire protection, police protection, etc.?  When you buy your stuff over the Internet, does UPS use a boat to get it over to you?  Who pays for the boat and the docks?  How do you pay for the stuff, since PayPal doesn’t work on the barter system? 

You also use our roads, either directly or indirectly, so you benefit from external society whether you want to believe it or not.  You use our infrastructure, our technology, our economic system, etc.  You’re not living on Farnham’s Freehold, let alone “going Galt”...

If you have money coming in, it’s taxed by the Feds whether the state has an income tax or not.  So either you’re lying, or you’re evading income taxes.  While I have no doubt you can get away with it for a while, it can’t go on forever.

So, in the end, why don’t you pull the other leg…

I did well, made millions, paid the taxes during that time, kept my mouth shut, and retired at age 50.

What really grates on you is the possibility that even some small fraction of the slaves might actually be able to get away with not servicing your Borg like collectivist fantasies.

Thanks for paying taxes on your millions, faiimuden, the Borg collective thanks you for adding your economic distinction to our own.  Resistance, it turns out, was futile!

Mike Ess—

Hell, just ask them who cleans the bathrooms and what they do with their garbage.

How do you pay for your Internet access?  Where do you get food during the winter and how do you pay for it?  Where did you get the money to build your “local solar power complex”?

And plus—how did you make “millions” in the first place which allowed you to retire? One notes that the writer is not claiming he moved to the middle of nowhere to make his fortune. He took advantage of all those opportunities first and went Galt later.

Presumably there are people who fantasize about making the proverbial “fuck you money” and chucking it all. But unless you had the foresight to join a hedge fund in the 1990s, odds are you don’t. So you work for the best money you can find. And doing that requires taking advantage of public infrastructure and the millions of people who’ve taken advantage of public education and the other opportunities that the united states provides.

Which is all the funny thing about “Going Galt”—if you decide you’ve finally acquired “enough” and can “Go Galt,” then you have thousands of people lined up behind you willing to work, be taxed, and live in a place with a lot of public infrastructure to do the same thing you did. And even then, most people who have a “live off the grid” fantasy were never interested in money regardless of the political climate.

Galters want to remain in the game because they know the regions based on their policies are hellholes to live in

And they also seem a bit more hesitant about proving their personal merit in a place that… hmm—how to put this?—is not culturally & ethnically quite what they had in mind.  They’re all about True Worth, as long as, y’know, they start out with the advantages of cultural dominance.  But that’s not privilege or anything… heavens, no!  It’s just that they might not be properly appreciated in a society that’s not automatically disposed toward Eurocentric values… and after all, that wouldn’t really be fair, would it?

Also, what catgirl said at 9:14 about infrastructure… I’m kinda tempted to agree with their experimental proposal, but only if they get one of the big, square, isolated states.  No New Hampshire, with its easy access to eastern-seaboard infrastructure, for them—all those liberal advantages just weaken the moral fiber.

Any person who doesn’t want to pay taxes should never drive on roads, set foot on public property, call the police if they are the victim of a crime, or let their kids go to school.  They should also tear up the diploma that they got from a public school, and not be allowed to use it to get into college.  Of course, they would still benefit immensely from national defense, environmental regulations, and business regulations.  What a bunch of selfish parasites.

I’m also vaguely amused that people are back-dating modern talking points to an earlier era. It’s only now that republicans complain that “all these poor and middle class working people don’t pay [income] taxes!” Back in the 70s and 80s, the public warning from Republicans would be that “someday, even middle class people will be buckling under the oppressive Democrat[ic] tax burdens!”

What Mr. faiimuden is writing can genersouly be referred to as “historical fiction.” The thing is, when writing historical fiction, you have to get the history right. You can’t have your conservative characters in 1979 spouting talking points that sound like a 2008 Wall Street Journal editorial.

Come on, Tyro, these people live in a world where FDR caused the Great Depression, where the late 19th Century was a golden age of freedom, and where monopolies do not exist except by government creation. They live in a world where George W. Bush was pro-regulation, and where black people, Mexicans, and Barney Frank caused the world economy to collapse.

Changing history is nothing new to them. They are, ironically, a lot like the Soviets in their pathetic attempt to make history conform to their ideology.

Oh, and I forgot my favorite bit of right-wing revisionism—that Fascism was left wing and, in fact, there is no such thing as right-wing totalitarianism.

The thing is, when writing historical fiction, you have to get the history right.

Alas, Tyro, while I agree with you in substance, the whole point of “historical fiction” is to make stuff up that never actually happened, while simultaneously attempting to pass it off as authentic.  This is actually the sine qua non of wingnut/Galter/Jeebus-is-coming-back-any-second hysterics.

Dear Mr. faiimuden,

    I don’t think I’ve ever read anything that is as full of shit as your post. Please kindly fuck off.

Sincerely,

Mark

My father, a conservative libertarian, used to go on about this kind of thing. He’d describe his plans to build a country of floating oil-drilling platforms in the middle of the ocean, somewhere near Singapore. He would be very detailed about how laws would work in this society, how they would be ultra-open and extremely freindly to trade. Different floating platforms could have their own different laws, and the people on each platform could define their own. The people could be islands unto themselves, subject to no-ones law but their own, connecting with other peoples only when and how they chose. This was at a time in my father’s life when he was stressed, worried about his family situation. The difference is, I think he always understood that this was science fiction, an enjoyment for himself and for us, rather than an actual blueprint for the future.

atheist, I suppose your father could always move to Sealand then.  ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Sealand ).  Even with less than a dozen people, though, they had an attempted coup.

the Democrats could get 51% of the voters off of the income tax rolls..

80% of the voters pay federal income tax.

As far as state income tax goes, there are states that have an income tax that starts after the first 1000/2000$ of earnings, minus the standard deduction. Curiously enough, they tend to be in the South and don’t vote Democrat, which tends to rule out your version of How Things Work. 

Purchases are made over the internet to minimize sales taxes.

Depends on the state you’re in.  Many states require that when a resident buys something from out-of state, that they declare a use tax and pay it by filing a state tax return, even if they have no taxable income for said state.

Are you being a naughty boy? That’s not for me to judge, the facts being somewhat hazy and all that.

We built a local solar power complex and a number of us are off the grid. We’re building an algae to biofuel facility to be self sufficient in our agricultural activities.

I call bullshit, because if you’re using a process that’s been patented for the latter activity, you’ll have to pay royalties. If you’ve come up with a process of your own, then you’ve really ‘gone Galt’, so I’d have to render the Scottish verdict here on that one.

What really grates on you is the possibility that even some small fraction of the slaves might actually be able to get away with not servicing your Borg like collectivist fantasies.

Oh, if you could persuade some of the slaves like Prof. Instapundit, his lovely and mad wife, Dr. Helen, or any number of people I could name to “leave the collective” and not bother us with idle talk of “going Galt”, we would thank you from the bottom of our Borg-like hearts for your accomplishment.

What really grates on you is that there’s no one ready to go Galt as you apparently have, but somehow that’s something ‘we’ collectivists fear and don’t want to happen.

Lotta talk but no action, and none of us collectivists have lifted a finger to hinder them from doing so.

Anyway, you’re not a real collectivist, or you wouldn’t be commenting on a collectivist blog, so just tell us what you’re trying to sell and be done with it.

What color is the sky in your world, BTW?

So I was preparing my income tax forms recently because I actually like benefiting from society and I’m not a selfish jerk, and I realized that, in my state, I pay a lower percentage of income tax on the first $3,000 I make.  Since I have to pay more income tax on anything higher than that, I am being discouraged from working hard enough to make more than $3,000.  So next year I’ll stop working right before I make $3,000 so I don’t have to pay extra taxes.  I can’t do it this year because I already passed that bracket, so I might as well keep going.  It all makes so much sense now.  I will deprive society of anything beyond $3,000 of my hard work if they want to take more of it.

Opportunities in the US are pretty good and actually much better than anything you could find elsewhere.

I didn’t expect to see the myth of American exceptionalism pop up in your otherwise awesome post, tyro.

Huh?  Has a troll taken over your name?  We’ve had a string of firebombings against UCLA researchers out here and I find it hard to believe that you would approve of people attacking university professors and research staff.

No, Mnemosyne, I didn’t say that it was a bad thing that the monkey wrenchers were imprisoned (I think BrianX interpreted what I wrote quite clearly) - note words “destruction”.  My point is that our Galtoid seems to lament the lack of “heart” in the opposition as well as in his own self and followers, without any keen understanding of where “having heart” leads for those who want the current state to go away or wish to take it over - those who willingly take passionate and deadly, and terroristic, and destructive action in the direction of their passions.

Ergo, perhaps teh Galtoids don’t really want to smash the state themselves - once they get over themselves, that is.

What really grates on you is the possibility that even some small fraction of the slaves might actually be able to get away with not servicing your Borg like collectivist fantasies.

But what about my fantasies where I’m the manly yet sensitive swashbuckling pirate and you’re my own special firebreathing dragon? WHAT ABOUT THOSE DAMNIT?!?!?!

And this, dear friends, is why we don’t let 7th-graders run the country.

The last 8 years seem to contradict your premise.

I was in 7th grade when I realized the “progressives” really were not against slavery. They were going to do whatever it took to eventually create a society where ever larger numbers of people have their every need met by a government, funded by an ever shrinking number of producers.

You do know there are grades after 7, right? Those are the ones where you learn not to be such a self centered douche. Perhaps you should have kept attending.

What really grates on you is the possibility that even some small fraction of the slaves might actually be able to get away with not servicing your Borg like collectivist fantasies.

No, what grates my nerves is ungrateful, oblivious people who leech off of society without contributing, and without even realizing how much they they are benefiting from society.  Considering that 7th graders pay very little taxes, but get free education from society and free food from their parents, I’m not surprised that Libertarians are still thinking at this level.

What really grates on you is that no one really cares if you leave.  You’ve been told as a child that you’re just so special and valuable, and you haven’t matured past that point so you still want people to tell you how wonderful you are.  It’s like that time Homer Simpson wanted to be thanked for doing nothing, and sulked, “but I like being thanked”.

I was in 7th grade

Yes.  Yes, you are.

Rugged individualist person living away from society’s clutches…that somehow knows what the Borg is.

FAIL.

Rugged individualist person living away from society’s clutches…that somehow knows what the Borg is.

...that somehow knows what Pandagon is, and cares enough to post despite living the simple life, unfettered by society.

I was in 7th grade when I realized the “progressives” really were not against slavery. They were going to do whatever it took to eventually create a society where ever larger numbers of people have their every need met by a government, funded by an ever shrinking number of producers. My friends and I said it was all over when the Democrats could get 51% of the voters off of the income tax rolls. That day is here. Seeing this was inevitable over 40 years ago, I simply worked my ass off through school and for 30 years. I did well, made millions, paid the taxes during that time, kept my mouth shut, and retired at age 50. I live simply in a state with no income tax. I haven’t paid any federal income or social security tax in over 15 years. I live on 100 acres of forest land on an island. Property tax is $283 per year. Purchases are made over the internet to minimize sales taxes. We have a farmers coop where most of our food need are met through barter and exchange. We built a local solar power complex and a number of us are off the grid. We’re building an algae to biofuel facility to be self sufficient in our agricultural activities. My investments grow tax free. I went “Galt” in the sense that I pay very little to a government I do not believe in, am not a slave to unbounded social spending, and don’t care at all if society doesn’t miss me. You aren’t pissed off because of all the noise makers out there spouting off Rand-isms. What really grates on you is the possibility that even some small fraction of the slaves might actually be able to get away with not servicing your Borg like collectivist fantasies.

Wow.  You’re in your mid-50s, living smugly on an island in a Galtian paradise - and you’ve come on the internet onto a leftist blog to argue, complete with a ST:TNG analogy?

Tell me, did you get Cheeto dust over your keyboard while writing this in your parent’s basement?

I dunno, if we can get more die-hard conservatives to vent their inchoate rage at the socialist collective by setting up quiet, environmentally sustainable collectives in the middle of nowhere, doesn’t that count as a win? “Algae to biofuel facility to be self sufficient in our agricultural activities”? Come on! I think that works.

Rugged individualist person living away from society’s clutches…

Seems so romantic a notion, now doesn’t it ... not that any of these people would want anything to do with those “living the dream”, nor would those “living the dream” want much to do with their wanking lot, either.

But Brandon!

Those brave producers! What would do without the people who brought us credit default swaps and toxic mortgages!? All the worthless paper they produce! They’re so valuable! /snark

I did well, made millions, paid the taxes during that time, kept my mouth shut, and retired at age 50. I live simply in a state with no income tax. I haven’t paid any federal income or social security tax in over 15 years. I live on 100 acres of forest land on an island.

“But my life is too content, so I start pointless arguments on the Internet”

<u>Come on! I think that works.</u>-

Yes, that’s the problem with inartistic bullshitters, they don’t know when to stop.  I’m surprised he didn’t say that he was using a little acreage to develop a better kind of firewood, or was going to breed BST-enhanced dairy cattle after he chops down a few acres, etc.

I was in 7th grade when I realized the “progressives” really were not against slavery.

That’s the second time in as many weeks a libertarian has introduced an argument with “my life philosophy hasn’t changed since I was a child.”  I don’t know about you, but when I was in 7th grade, I had friends who believed that Kentucky Fried Chicken raised headless chickens in Matrix-style pods and that if your boyfriend drank a lot of Mountain Dew he couldn’t get you pregnant.  Kids are dumb, which is why we spend so much time and money on them before we let them vote or operate heavy machinery.

Ms Kate:

Another word for that is “Will”. As espoused by borderline sociopathic elderly self-harmer G. Gordon Liddy, among other extreme right-wing tools.

Kyso K:

Ironically, I realized SDI was unworkable when I was in 7th grade. However, I don’t think I would take myself too seriously when it came to my opinions on contemporary politics—after all, I knew Reagan was bad for the country, but damned if I could tell you why at the time. (Of course, since September it’s been all too obvious, but Ronnie’s been <strike>dead</strike> hiding in a toy store for years and can’t be called to account.)

We’re building an algae to biofuel facility to be self sufficient in our agricultural activities.

Um, interesting.  That technology is a ways off - but I suppose the hive mind of your solar collective magicked away all the problems of development that several large research initiatives have yet to surmount.

<u>That technology is a ways off.</u>

Indeed

Energy company PetroSun’s algae-to-biofuel facility in Rio Hondo, Texas is expected to begin functioning tomorrow, April 1.(2008-ed) The farm consists of 1,100 acres of saltwater ponds, of which all but 20 acres will be dedicated to producing biofuel from algae. The other 20 acres will be used to develop an experimental jet fuel. The facility is expected to produce some 4.4 million gallons of algal oil, plus 110 million pounds of biomass a year.

OTOH

Think you need some fancy set up to produce algae for biofuels, like used by some multi-million dollar company? Nonsense!

Check out this short clip on making a photo-bioreactor using recycled drink bottles. Over at Instructables all the steps are shown how to do this (the intro being embedded above).

Interesting algae biofuel info…