Google the phrase, with quotes, "Going Galt" and you'll get "about 215,000" results or so.
Are libertarians witnessing the mainstreaming of John Galt?
This article touches on one of the reasons why the idea of Going Galt is becoming so popular. But it needs to begin with this caveat:
NOTE: This article is not for the Pollyanna "good citizenship" drones who can't tell the difference between government tax-muggers and the productive people they terrorize.
Banker Bradley Birkenfeld of the Swiss bank UBS assisted US citizens who had committed the unforgivable crime of being successful. In an effort to help them keep their own money, he set up secret bank accounts as a firewall against the ravages of the voracious American IRS.
(The fact that the I in IRS stands for Internal, not International, seems to be irrelevant to the criminal class that runs the American Empire.)
But Birkenfeld turned snitch. His bank, succumbing to the intimidations applied by the American thumbscrew thugs, handed over the names of the very account-holders they had pledged to keep secret.
So the greedy government goons pulled off an act of legalized identity theft by politically hacking a bank, and now (quoting the Miami Herald) "more than 150 Americans across the country are under criminal .jpg)
investigation for hiding income" from a reckless American hegemon that guzzles other peoples' money like cheap beer at a frat party.
Now Birkenfeld himself is going down for 30 months in the slammer, which should be a message to all citizens: never lie down for a vulture.
Many libertarians believe that America has already passed the tipping point. The subjugation of freedom is here and the republic is irretrievable.
Which means it's time to Go Galt.
Going Galt, for those not in the know, refers to the main character in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged who leads the nation's best and brightest business brains into a work stoppage against the political species. They simply walk away from their firms, allowing them to fail, leaving nothing for the tax-gobbling government-huggers to gorge themselves on.
But how can everyday individuals Go Galt?
Going Galt doesn't mean fighting back, socially or politically, like so many libertarian groups and organizations attempt to do. It doesn't mean becoming an activist, passing out copies of Atlas Shrugged or Reason magazine or the World's Smallest Political Quiz.
Although there's nothing wrong with any of that.
Georgia businessman Craig Root erected this billboard
near the St. Mary’s, Georgia, exit on southbound I-95.
(Courtesy of The US Report)
Going Galt might mean dropping out, a libertarian version of Timothy Leary's famous 60's countercultural call to "Turn on, tune in, drop out."
It could be a physical dropout, like moving to Tinytown and subsisting small rather than living large. The lower your income, after all, the fewer tax nutrients you swill into the government's feeding trough.
Or stay where you are but downsize your life. Quit working overtime. Take more vacations, sick leave, and personal time off. Live comfortably but staunch the tax flow to the tax sucking parasites.
Or, channeling the 60s again, go limp. Peaceful Vietnam War protesters neither fought nor cooperated with the cops. They simply showed up at protests and went limp, which required three or four of the government's uniformed enforcers to haul each of them off to the paddy wagon.
You can go limp from the comfort of your own home. Neither resist the police state nor cooperate with it. When you're asked to serve on a jury, get out of it. When you're asked to donate money to police-fire-veterans benevolent organizations, hang up. When you're told to fill out an unconstitutional census form, trash it.
Only vote libertarian. Or don't vote at all since it only encourages them.
And when the cops come knocking for info on locating a criminal, know nothing. Unless they're looking for a violent felon. But chances are even higher that they're being good little Puppets of the Regime, tracking down individuals who have committed the victimless "crime" of harming no one.
If you feel you can do nothing to prevent the evisceration of our freedoms, at the very least do nothing to help it along.
And keep the Going Galt option in mind.
Comments
Garry:
Nice article. Thanks.
Yes, good approach, and worth thinking about.
Not a good idea, and not worth thinking about.
Since the essentially self-destructive suggestions of the July 30th "Going Galt" Conservative strike didn't pan out, now we're being encouraged to follow these seemingly tempered down, yet self-punitively inane approaches to resist government encroachment. Ex - It's not important as an American citizen to distinguish bank robbers, murderers and sex offenders from patriots in dealing with our police.
If you effectively want to "Go Galt", become interested in and encourage your children to learn more about the new intellectual movement generated from the book. Advocate a renaissance of individual rights in politics, and rational objective standards in American culture and civilization -- and foremost, your own individual life.
It will require first-hand thinking to understand and implement this new moral code. This is what it will take for anyone who loves their life and is willing to fight for it. This is what it means to "Go Galt"
What does John Galt have to do with libertarians?
"Advocate a renaissance of individual rights in politics"??????
Talk about an "inane approach!"
The believers in statism live on. What poor, pathetic chumps.
We just seem to feed the machine. Work more hours, spend more money to work those hours. Is that extra 1000 square feet worth missing your family? Is the new "manly" truck payment worth it? Get a new this or that and throw it away. Feeding the beast.
Going Galt. First you create, work hard, do your best.
When it leads no where, you do your job.
When it is helping to destroy your own life, you don't help in that effort.
You resist and fight for meaningful government that is not intrusive, stealing trillions of dollars from taxpayers to pay for others.
When you are overwhelmed by the attack on your work and your money, you take it away any way that you please and however it works for you.
No one should contribute to their own demise.
Great article. There are many other ways to "Go Galt" without abandoning your responsibilities to your family. Most of them also tend to help the environment, or your health, or both. In general, starve the government of tax revenue. For example:
1) Grow a vegetable garden if you live in a state which taxes food.
2) If you smoke or drink alcohol - cut back - those are 2 of the most heavily taxed items.
3) Buy a smaller home, pay less property tax.
4) Pack a lunch. You'll spend less on your lunch, which means less tax revenue for the state.
When you go galt, please also stop mooching from the rest of us and don't use any of our tax-paid public facilities! When your house is on fire, please tell the firefighters to go away.
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