Letters : Who is John Galt jr.?

John,
I just saw your homepage and notice that you are a pinko leftist environmentalist extremist (and many more things that end in "ist." YOU ARE IN NO WAY SIMILAR TO THE TRUE JOHN GALT, the one from Ayn Rand's novel "Atlas Shrugged."
Give up your appropriated name if you're not going to use it properly! The true John Galts out there are lovers of freedom, capitalism, free enterprise, and mostly lovers of the concept that man shapes the world and its elements to fit his desires and enhance his life. What tree ever had compassion on you? Another John Galt

Oh Quite the contrary, That seems a perfect definition of who John Galt jr is. Like so many others you choose to pick a single passage from all that is presented and blow it up to be the only message. This web site has basic freedoms and anti government as it's themes. I am completely in favor of capitalism and free enterprise, unfortunately neither exists here anymore. Our capitalism has been replaced by a democratic socialism, 40% percent of every man's earnings find there way into a various level of government, (whether by taxes, fees, fines, or other revenue enhancements like forfeitures) the free spirited entrepreneur has little chance against the corporate giants. When the individual makes great strides the corporations facing competition either buy him out squash him using their wealth position to under cut or bribe government officials through campaign donations to pass laws outlawing his conduct or business. The environmental issues are there as well because it is foolish for man to pit himself against the laws of nature for they are far more permanent than the laws of man. Man should embrace nature not destroy it. The original John Galt shut down an inefficient government by stealing away the great minds. I am doing much the same.. I believe John Galt's message could be summed in the quote "I swear by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine." John Galt in "Atlas Shrugged"

I have never claimed to be like the original John Galt perhaps his wiser grandson. You see John Galt lived in a different time. John Galt jr. lives in the present and looks toward the future. John Galt Jr. may be a fictional alias, but it represents a real man living in a real world, You would know this if you had read more than a couple of pages. I am equally sure that you also would have found bigger beefs with what I have penned my guise as John Galt jr.

But hey why not consult the Master Ayn Rand, creator of the fictional hero,
John Galt (from whom the ideas behind John Galt Jr were born)

The most profoundly revolutionary achievement of the United States of America was the subordination of society to moral law. The principle of man's individual rights represented the extension of morality into the social system - as a limitation on the power of the state, as man's protection against the brute force of the collective, as the subordination of might to right. The United States was the first moral society in history.
All previous systems had regarded man as a sacrificial means to the ends of others, and society as an end in itself. The United States regarded man as an end in himself, and society as a means to the peaceful, orderly, voluntary coexistence of individuals. All previous systems had held that man's life belongs to society, that society can dispose of him in any way it pleases, and that any freedom he enjoys is his only by favor, by the permission of society, which may be revoked at any time. The United States held that man's life is his by right (which means: by moral principle and by his nature), that a right is the property of an individual, that society as such has no rights, and that the only moral purpose of a government is the protection of individual rights. From Atlas Shrugged

The Declaration of Independence laid down the principle that "to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men." This provided the only valid justification of a government and defined its only proper purpose: to protect man's rights by protecting him from physical violence.
Thus the government's function was changed from the role of ruler to the role of servant. The government was set to protect man from criminals - and the Constitution was written to protect man from the government.
The Bill of Rights was not directed against private citizens, but against the government - as an explicit declaration that individual rights supersede any public or social power.
Ayn Rand from (The Virtue of Selfishness)

Criminals are a small minority in any age or country. And the harm they have done to mankind is infinitesimal when compared to the horrors - the bloodshed, the wars, the persecutions, the confiscations, the famines, the enslavements, the wholesale destruction - perpetrated by mankind's governments. A government is the most dangerous threat to man's rights: it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force against legally disarmed citizens. When unlimited and unrestricted by individual rights, a government is men's deadliest enemy. It is not as protection against private actions, but against governmental actions that the Bill of Rights was written.
Ayn Rand

Perhaps it is you that should give up the name, if you don't know what the man stood for...
As far as compassionate trees. I would say every tree that has given it's life without so much as whimper to provide me heat or shelter and with the life style I have enjoyed and become accustomed too. But look around
and tell me where are the trees today? How have we repaid them for their sacrifice?
John Galt jr.


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