Atlas Shrugged as do the Republicans

Let me make one thing quite clear. At heart, I am a republican—but not in a million years would I vote for any of the versions of republicanism that pollute the American expression of the concept today.

The young man aspiring to becoming a VP of the USA is said to be an admirer of Ayn Rand. As a matter of fact, so was Alan Greenspan, the ex-Chairman of the Federal Reserve (the only organization in the US which seems to operate outside the laws of the land) and he hasn’t done the economy much good either. Or so I am told.

So let them take the example from Atlas Shrugged, a novel I would have enjoyed more if it were exactly half its length. Nevertheless, Ayn created a reality she called “Galt’s Gulch”, where the “brains of the world” (i.e. of the USA), built a town protected from the ungodly eyes of the masses by a “ray screen” of invisibility. There they, the (principally business or financial) brains, patted each other on the back, telling themselves how magnificent they were, how marvelous it was to be protected and apart from the working classes. A little like a “Gated Conclave” of the rich in Florida.

I have a suggestion.

Let the rich, the 0.001% of Americans, use their untold billions (trillions?) of private money they’d accumulated to buy an island, somewhere, anywhere, and follow Any Rand’s solution. Let them create a “Mitt Gulch” or a “Ryan Gulch” and protect it with whatever means they want. I promise not to come near it. Let them stew in their own fat.

There would be but one condition. Only the rich would be allowed on the shores of the Mitt/Ryan Gulch. No one whose hands were ever soiled by an honest day’s work would be allowed to join the “chosen few”. Oh my—this sounds almost biblical, which is just as well. The present day republicans love to misrepresent the Bible.  (“Don’t love your enemies, kill them instead. You make more money that way.”) Let them enjoy their hidden Atlantis. And good riddance.

I give them about a month.

Then they would beg for the “workers” to come and be exploited by them. For minimum wage, of course. They would prove, once and for all, that Daniel Defoe was right:  that “No man is an island unto himself”. No matter how rich. 

PS. You might want to try my version of Atlas Shrugged, the Headless World, which at least offers a lasting solution. You might enjoy it.