Democrats Rising: Time to "Go John Galt?"

First things first: let’s not be whiny little liberals.

You know who I'm talking about: those Hollywood lefties who so righteously claimed they’d move to Canada, should that Son of a Bush win a first, then a second term.

He did, they didn’t. Because that would be stupid. Still, they promised. You won’t have us to kick around anymore! And we’ll hold our breath, too!

Yeah. Let's not be them.

Anyway, this year, the tables are turned. The deal isn’t done yet – we do still have to count the votes – but conservatives are beginning to consider life under President Obama. Not just President Obama, but President Obama with a filibuster-proof Senate.

Scary. Scary enough to make us look for the nearest safe haven, except…there isn’t one. Once the U.S. goes socialist, what's left?

Thus, the latest question, posed by blogger Dr. Helen Smith: when is it time to “go John Galt?”

John Galt, the central figure of Ayn Rand’s classic “Atlas Shrugged,” was a brilliant inventor who, along with other high-producing entrepreneurs like him, dropped out of society. Galt created “Galt’s Gulch,” a hidden place where he and other “strikers” began their own capitalist society. "Stopped the motor of the world," to starve out those who lived off their achievements.

Smith writes:

Perhaps the partisan politics we are dealing with now is really just a struggle between those of us who believe in productivity, personal responsibility, and keeping government interference to a minimum, and those who believe in the socialistic policies of taking from others, using the government as a watchdog, and rewarding those who overspend, underwork, or are just plain unproductive.

… Perhaps it is time for those of us who make the money and pay the taxes to take it easy, live on less and let the looters of the world find their own way.

It’s Tom Sowell’s “Grasshopper and the Ants” fable. You know: the grasshopper is lazy, and goes hungry in the winter, while the industrious ants work and prepare and are ready?

In Sowell’s version, the “progressive” ants take the grasshopper in, give him food and shelter despite his own shortcomings. Needless to say, the grasshopper never changes his ways, but the ants – seeing his easy lifestyle – do start changing theirs.

So who’s going to prepare for winter, then? And how long until they start saying "enough!"

There ought to be a point, somewhere, at which we get to say: no. This is mine. I earned it, and you can’t have it. Yes, we want to help those in need. Those who have fallen on hard times. We want to be generous, and charitable, and to share what we have.

But you shouldn’t be able to force us. Not to this extent, and certainly not further. And if you try, we’re outta here.

Yeah, but: we just quit trying? Quit saving, quit investing, quit making things grow?

No. There’s a certain juvenile satisfaction in taking one’s ball and going home, but the kind of people we're talking about are hard-charging high achievers. They're self-starters who won't be happy sitting around hoping Social Security will cover a weekly trip to the diner.

I wouldn't be happy. They certainly won't.

My solution: the Free State Project – the movement to move enough libertarian-minded voters to New Hampshire, so they can effectively (and legally) take over and enact a libertarian-minded government.

True, we wouldn't be able to hide from federal mandates. Obamanation would hold the biggest cards. But we could make our Free State better, relative to the states around us. If the Feds try to smoke us out, well, one in five Americans think states should have the right to secede. So we've got that going for us.

Of course, in that case, I think we'd want more coastline. So let's take over the Pacific Northwest, instead of New Hampshire. More oil over there, and since western Canada tends to be more conservative than eastern Canada, unification with Alaska becomes possible.

Then expand eastward. Get the Dakotas, because we want Mount Rushmore and the Sturgis Bike Rally, and from there take in Wisconsin.

Minnesota we'll leave. We can go around to the north.

Crazy? Maybe. Or maybe genius. Regardless: as our country moves farther and farther along the socialist trail, fewer and fewer of us will be willing to do the work.

And somebody has to. Winter does come.