Ooooh, the customer discussions are FUN!!

“Every time Obama speaks the stock market goes down and the sales of Atlas Shrugged go up. This is not a mistake nor is it a coincidence. People know when something is very wrong and what Obama, Pelosi, and Reid are doing is very wrong.”

Barrels of laughs.

The one time in American history when literature is used as a salve for injustice and people turn to Rand. That’s just a sick joke.

Ooooh, the customer discussions are FUN!!

I haven’t seen that many special snowflakes since alt.emo.newsgroup committed internet suicide.

Now I really gotta buy that coffee mug that reads: “You are not John Galt.”  Maybe one that asks, “Where is your perpetual motion machine?”

Exactly, Blitzgal.

In fact, maybe this will settle everything: The first person to come up with a working perpetual motion machine, gets tax exemption for the rest of his or her life, even unto the 15th generation. Now get to work, libertarians!

How about “John Galt Is A Ficticious Character.  And You Are A Fucking Moron For Not Realizing That.” on coffee mug? 

Also, it’s appropriate that Galt is located in the most foreclosure-y part of CA.  Don’t even think about asking for a bailout for your upside down homes, losers.

The Cliff’s Notes to Atlas Shrugged are #23.

That is officially the funniest fucking thing I have read all week.

I guess after you read the Cliff’s Notes you make a sign reading I AM JO!

Perhaps if the people who think they should go Gault would read the book they would find out,

  1. The people who dropped out in the book were really productive members of society,not parasites.

  2. The society they dropped out of was opressive way past any thing we have.

  3. The “John Gaults” in the book were really missed and necessary to their society.

Yeah, by the way, do not go to Galt, Ca.  It is a crappy failing small town with a rampant meth problem (was no too long ago called the meth capital of California), no opportunities or prospects for young people, and yet, like many of the formerly rural districts of central California, inexplicably keeps voting Republican and promoting the most vicious forms of hate.

If anyone here is actually from Galt, I’m sorry.  I just grew up not too terribly far from there, knew people from there and the nearby towns, and have a jaundiced perception of the whole region.  Anytime Sacramento seems like a gleaming metropolis and a bastion of liberalism, you know you’re coming in from a bad, bad place.

If everyone in the country goes Galt at the same time, will anyone even notice? Or do we all just switch places?

Something about Randroids always makes me think of the Mad Hatter yelling, “CHANGE! PLACES!”

Omg, it even happened at a Tea Party, too…! Maybe libertarianism is all just a performance-art homage to Lewis Carrol!

I live not far from an area known locally as the “Galt Mile”—lots of overpriced condos right near the beach. Maybe they could all come live down here and when the ocean waters rise because they decided to let the market handle global warming they can all drown. We won’t be able to build sea walls down here because the limestone marl south Florida is built on is too porous—the water will come up around us.

ah, and Tucker Max at #6.

BTW, OT, I have been to Galt, CA many times (I lived in NoCal several times as a kid).  Don’t have any idea why somebody would choose to go there of their own volition. 

OTOH, I can also say it’s not the worst town in CA by any means…

I wonder how much of this increase in sales is coming from professors who are tired of both the whiny and the shiny and want them both to actually read and discuss what they are arguing about?  If it is turning up on more and more college reading lists, that means more sales.

Oh, and is it possible to limit the comments to just those who actually bought the book within the last year?

Cast off the shoe!  Follow the gourd!

(Sorry - post title triggered my latent Life of Brian memories.)

If they Go Galt, it will actually be a great thing.

Y’see, The “Red” states actually receive the most federal dollars per tax dollars spent.  While New Mexico (the #1 recipient of federal dollars) is a blue state, it’s more than eclipsed in total $ amount received by its red-state runner-ups.

So if all of these WATB’s were to leave and drop out and not contribute to society anymore, we’d probably have a little more federal money to spend on important things.

Magis shrugged. *yawn*

2. The society they dropped out of was opressive way past any thing we have.

Oh, come on!  If a 4% rise in teh marginal tax rate inflicted on the very rich isn’t oppression, I don’t know what is!

Funny you mention this. Over the past fortnight I’ve noticed two people reading Atlas Shrugged on the subway (and not the NYC subway). One was a grungy-looking grad-school girl, and one was a haggard-looking mope in a cheap suit—not exactly Heroic Captain of Industry types.

was no too long ago called the meth capital of California)

Well, if you’d gone from being a billionaire to tilling the soil for potatoes (carb energy for your big radio address), you’d turn to meth, too.

I think moving to this sad California town should be the new definition of “Going Galt.”

Something else interesting about where Galt is ... it is quite close to where the City of Ember would likely have been located.

I’ll admit to being one of the new Any Rand purchasers (but a used paperback!  Really!).  Sure, I’m picking up the basics from you fine people at Pandagon (who have read the book so I don’t have to, and I thank you for your sacrifice), but it’d be nice to read the actual thing so I could comment intelligently.

Read the first few pages, put it down, picked it up, put it down, etc.  Cliff Notes, here I come.

I wonder how much of this increase in sales is coming from professors who are tired of both the whiny and the shiny and want them both to actually read and discuss what they are arguing about?  If it is turning up on more and more college reading lists, that means more sales.
Ms Kate on 03/27 at 04:05 PM

Uhm, Ms Kate, you seem to be laboring under the following misperceptions:

1. College kids read.
2. College kids actually buy the books assigned by their profs.

The jump in cliff notes sales - different story.

Perhaps the WingNut Welfare Machine is buying up those stupid books and giving them away to their worshippers.  Or maybe illegally dumping (the books) them…perhaps in a live volcano?  Good way to get rid of them, and if the world is lucky the volcano will erupt as if it has food poisoning.

Kwillow, that’s how Rand’s books came into prominence in the first place.  Wingnut organizations and various rich loonies bought up thousands of the books and donated them to high schools and colleges, where they would reach their target audience of impressionable young people.

Or maybe illegally dumping (the books) them…perhaps in a live volcano?  Good way to get rid of them, and if the world is lucky the volcano will erupt as if it has food poisoning.

Wouldn’t that unleash angry thetans to make us all sad?

I think all these Galters just need to read Dianetics.

(please don’t hurt me)

“Or maybe illegally dumping (the books) them…perhaps in a live volcano?”

My theory is there are whole villages in Mexico that are constructed of remaindered copies of Coulter’s, Ponnuru’s, and Goldberg’s books.  (These villages are next to others constructed of copies of Dianetics that Tom Cruise personally carrys and stacks in order to help the less fortunate…)

All those mysterious copies of Atlas Shrugged are no doubt filling a similar noble purpose.  They might even be used as a dirty and inefficient new energy source for mankind.

The old gal might have finally moved on to the Galt’s Gulch in the sky, but Ayn Rand’s still giving to humanity. (She’s giving us the finger, but that’s still giving, right?...)

I have a friend who lives in the Fountainhead Apartments, a complete shithole. The walls are paper thin. The guy upstairs is a dancer and keeps my friend up all night, there are kids running around and screaming outside his windows, it’s like survival of the least fit.

Wouldn’t that unleash angry thetans to make us all sad?

[...]

I think all these Galters just need to read Dianetics.

“Who is Xenu?”

The word “volcano” also completed the same Rand-Elron circuit in my head (the entrepreneurial genius of which is protected from you non-Clear parasites by a special metal alloy I made out of Reynolds Wrap and bronze spray paint).

What is it about turgid science-fantasy prose that attracts these cult followings?

Ewww!!!

Galt is a white-trash haven. I went to school with people from Galt and they were always dirty, and not is the good way…

Yes! We are all individuals!

I’m not.

While New Mexico (the #1 recipient of federal dollars) is a blue state

In NM’s defense, an awful lot of it is owned by the Federal government.  Lots of national parks and military installations.  And a fair portion is also Native American lands; I don’t know if BIA expenditures would be included in this or not.

“You passive-aggressive losers, just stop threatening us. Just go off to your happy valley with magic pony energy, mysteriously grown food (where does it come from?), and really, really, REALLY, REALLY long speeches (damn that Galt guy can’t shut up).”

...they’re just trying make sure we all know just how badly we’re going to miss them, and how they will leave us in a veritable hell-on-earth when they take their superior minds, work ethic, and Objectivist philosophy with them.

We are really, really going to be screwed when they finally leave, I’ll tell you what.  It will be a blow to humanity as big as New Coke, or Ford announcing the Mustang II, or when the Republicans showed their new Federal Budget proposal…

Hey Randtards, there are like a billion copies of Atlas Shrugged for sale at the used book store, or is that anti-free market.

histro-geek—this is what’s known as a “Rage Quit” in gaming circles. Throwing a big fucking tantrum because you’ve lost and then leaving.

The longer-drawn-out the Rage Quit, the more pathetic the little loser is. These people are putting your average TF2-playing 13 year old to shame.

Also

magic pony energy

Makes me uneasy. We all know how the Randroids feel about exploiting another person as just another resource.

I’ve honestly been thinking about buying a used copy of Atlas Shrugs myself, for the same reason I rented Twilight. So it’s not necessarily a bleak thing. Most people might not be aware that money goes to fund her freakish Objectivist Institute.

“Yes! We are all individuals!”

“I’m not.”

Reminds me of Steve Martin’s asking his audience to recite the Non-Conformist’s Oath:

Now let’s repeat the non-conformists’ oath: I promise to be different! (audience repeats) I promise to be unique! (audience repeats) I promise not to repeat things other people say! (audience laughs, repeats) Good!

Galt, CA is very near the Consumnes River Preserve, which is a nice spot to look for sandhill cranes and other birds.  Since Galt had less expensive gas than other places, when I’d go birding near Cosumnes, I’d sometimes drive the 8 miles or so to Galt to fill my tank with gas.  On a recent trip, the service station gave me $20 of free gas.

That’s about it for Galt in my book…  But Cosumnes is a neat place to visit.

I’m pretty sure “Atlas Shrugged” was the first non-assigned, non-fantasy novel I read.

Well, non-fantasy in the sense that there’s sorcery. 

I should really re-read it so I can mock it properly.  All I really remember is that even 13 year-old blucas, who counted JRR Tolkien and Brian fucking Jacques as his favorite writers, found “Atlas Shrugged” a bit too far-fetched. 

Which is a roundabout way of saying you’ll see mice with swords battling armored badgers before you see Dr. Helen founding an anarcho-libertarian paradise.

This book was assigned in my freshman advanced English class and I can distinctly remember using people’s reactions as a benchmark for who I could get along with and who I was going to wind up hating. Before I get slammed for that kind of black and white thinking, please keep and mind I was 13 and made many decisions this way.

You don’t like the spicy carrots they serve at burrito stands=instant dislike.
You love shredding the butt of your jeans and then wearing black tights under them=we’ll get along just fine.

spicy carrots uber alles

My high school would sometime play Galt. And our beloved Ronald D. Moore used to play in those games. So, for those of you who hated the ending of BSG ...

People just dipping into the Rand oeuvre should read the Fountainhead first—it is actually possible to complete in less than eternity.

If the Cliff Notes are too much effort, The Fountainhead was turned into a movie with Gary Cooper and Patricia Neal—try to Netflix it.

isn’t reading the cliff notes version of the fountainhead kind of defeating the point?

While lending an elbow to a blind gentleman who needed to navigate a complex intersection without chirping lights (they shut them off when the mockingbirds start learning new tunes ...), I had a very bad evil thought.  Instead of going Galt, these bereaved tax dodging libertarians could go Oedipus instead and poke their eyes out to get an additional tax break.

Motherfuckers.

Can The Objectivists just get together with The Scientologists and take over the GOP from the Right-Wing Fundamentalist Nut-Bunnies & have a big war and they all kill each other in an Ultra-Neutron Bomb explosion that takes out most of Texas? 

That should fix the economy & job-market pretty well for the rest of us, too. Win-win!

My husband claims I’ve already gone Galt.
I have an English degree.

I left academia to drive a semi and write romance novels.

Personally, I think I’m contributing more to society now than I was when I was shelf-reading a university library. I make better money and benefits behind the wheel, too. I use my degree on my terms.

He keeps insisting I should read Atlas Shrugged. My own TBR pile is too high already.

isn’t reading the cliff notes version of the fountainhead kind of defeating the point?

If you like Rand’s ideas, you’ll love reading The Fountainhead. You might as well find out what those ideas are, before investing any considerable time.

My former mother-in-law, who comes from an extremely poor working-class family, never got her BA, and spent a decade working as a low-level manager on a defunct military base insisted that both her sons read Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. She was actually a pretty nice lady, so I tried reading them too, and I just could not understand the appeal to her. Except maybe he was expecting to rise up and be recognized as the super exceptional person she felt herself to be at any moment? Or else she felt her lack of success was due to the world not accommodating to her exceptional qualities? I mean, she was the most regular lady I’ve ever met, and I loved her for that. I couldn’t understand what appealed to her about a world view that was so dismissive of who she actually was. Explains sooo much about the disaster that was my first marriage, though.

Also, any professor who assigns Rand in a literature class should be forced to resign tenure. Either that, or my Mom’s lectures on how I should eat more vitamins also have hidden depths of artistic merit.

Interestingly, I have also been stuck in Lodi due to vehicle malfunction. The tow truck guys in that town must be so sick of hearing it!

But if they leave, who will be left to teabag the White House?

I’m familiar with people who Rage Quit in games, I’ve done it sometimes myself.  In my case it’s usually “Oh, my computer crashed” and it looked suspiciously like me turning off the game in the middle of a moronic PUG.  I guess I Quit Rage instead, I unplug and then amuse people with my anger at the stupidity of your average gamer. 

You see a lot more Rage Quits in FPS games (and teabagging too) because they tend to attract the socially challenged.  Not all FPS gamers are like this, but if you play one, you know of whom I speak. They have the same mindset as the Galters, we’ll miss them when they’ve taken their ineptitude elsewhere!

“I’m going Galt. Any time now….any second. Waiiit for it…You’ll all pay; every last one of you. I’m edging towards the exit. Any moment now, and I’ll have gone, leaving the unfit behind to mourn my absence.”

My maternal family grew up in Galt—the one shown on that map.

When I saw bumper stickers saying “Who is John Galt?” I used to think, I dunno, is he the guy who founded that little town? Guess there’s a lot of hometown pride in ex-Galters. If the Randroids all went Galt to Galt, though, they’d be spoiling a town that had some lovely traits, like school reunions of multiple years held as family picnics, so it was genuinely about people catching up with old friends, not showing off.

When I was 13 or 14 I discovered Tolkien, especially Lord of the Rings. I did become a pretty insufferable fan and I have only somewhat mellowed to this day. Even nowadays I know mroe about the history and geography of Gondor than about many countries in teh real orld and teh sentence, “Heaven is for other people, if I die I want to go to middle earth” appeals to me.

But in the end that was harmless. I and I think the other fanatic fans never regarded our fellow human beings as orcs or oriented our politics toward a Return of the king.

On the other hand I did read the Disposessed at 17 and thought I was a anarchist for half a year or so. All the ambiguity of LeGuin did go straight about my head.

So I’m no stranger to the danger of drawing half-baked ideas from novels. But Rand - appealing to a certain demographic while peddling a very simplified political message is a special annoying combination.

It’s interesting to me that people who eat up Ayn Rand all think of themselves as the exceptional people.  This, despite the fact that they are obviously followers, and worse, the sort of people who think Rand is a good writer, thereby proving they are only exceptionally stupid.

_IM_, I hated both Tolken AND Rand in high school.  I couldn’t get into either of them.

Then again, as an adult, I read almost exclusively non-fiction.

Would that withdrawing from society had been so easy, when Bush and fellow fantasists were spinning a 1950s paradise for America - the Own Your Own Home campaigns, fear-mongering, gay-baiting, justifying torture, demonizing intelligence and anything foreign, corrupting executive offices, etc (and now, at least enough never to have known what “going Galt” even means, much less who Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber are). Unfortunately, the cretinous zeitgeist was just about everywhere for a few years.

Instead, of course, Liberals rose above the fray to respond with arguments about what a good and just society would look like, and to present alternatives to the fearful, hateful society Bush and company envisioned. Cotnrast this with the conservative response to Obama’s policies today: tea-party tantrums and rooting for the President to fail.

Luke, what is most telling is that there are very few, if any, places to “go Galt” without making some very ugly and very real trade-offs.  On the other hand, the only thing that stood between educated librul elites and their companion version - leaving the country - was the immigration policies of Canada, the EU, and Australia. 

If you truly want to drop out of the US, you have to be willing to live with all those who have a lot of money and wish to evade the rule of law as much as possible - and that means failed states and islands full of drug kingpins, shadowy corporate criminals, and others who won’t think twice about taking yours too.  If you wanted basic social supports and educational opportunity for your children, there are options if you have actual credentials to offer.

“_IM_, I hated both Tolken AND Rand in high school.  I couldn’t get into either of them.

Then again, as an adult, I read almost exclusively non-fiction.”

I only read non-fiction when necessary and prefer fiction, especially the escapist one like fantasy.
But I know it is escapism; and that I think is important.

I kind of wonder if this is, at least in part, either caused or effected by WeRead (the Facebook/MySpace app) recommending ONLY Ayn Rand books to people. 8 of its 15 recommendations to me are books written by or about her. *grumble*

Jonathan Livingston Seagalt? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Livingston_Seagull

“Jonathon Livingston Budgerigar” is considerably closer to how they’d actually wind up.

Damn - I *have* to chase down the lyrics for that - it’s been ages since I’ve heard it.

But in the end that was harmless. I and I think the other fanatic fans never regarded our fellow human beings as orcs or oriented our politics toward a Return of the king.

_IM_, I think that’s partly because everyone knows, on some level, that Tolkien is fantasy but not everyone seems to truly realize this about Ayn Rand’s books. In addition, Tolkien seems to have a more balanced, ultimately compassionate view of humankind than Ayn Rand.

Basically it’s the same reason that Christianity was the dominant philosophy of an entire civilization for about 1000 years, but Randism has so far only been a political movement. Randism is less able to deal with the real world, and people as they actually are, than Christianity.

Couldn’t find the mug referenced above, so I made my own:

http://www.cafepress.com/matthewstore.372551280