Atlas Shrugged - from fiction to fact in the Age of Obama

Don't say you weren't warned by this blog before he was voted into office.

"In January, Stephen Moore caused a stir by arguing, in the Wall Street Journal, that the current crisis is turning Atlas Shrugged 'from fiction to fact.' And those who are warning that increased government restrictions will cause the nation's most productive workers to withdraw their talents have taken to calling this the 'John Galt Effect,' a reference to the hero -- and the main plotline -- of Atlas Shrugged. It is no coincidence that the strongest resistance to a government takeover of the economy is coming from people influenced by Ayn Rand. She has long functioned as a stiffener of resolve and as the fountainhead of pro-free-market ideas. ...Ayn Rand's contribution to the philosophical defense of capitalism can be summed up in one central idea: individualism. Ayn Rand demonstrated that the ultimate source of all wealth -- everything from steel mills to microchips -- is the individual reasoning mind. Thus, a society that wants to prosper has to ask what is required by its thinkers and producers, the 'prime movers' who originate and implement new ideas. And the first thing that is required for these thinkers to function is that they be free from coercive interference by bureaucrats, by blowhard legislators, or by federal 'czars.' ... Ayn Rand's ideas are the mostly unnamed fuel giving fire and confidence to people like [CNBC financial analyst] Rick Santelli. ... If we're going to have an ideological Boston Tea Party, a declaration of independence from the whole theory behind state management of our lives and wealth, then Ayn Rand is the ideal philosophical hostess." --editor of The Intellectual Activist and TIADaily.com Robert Tracinski