I remember reading Atlas Shrugged in the tenth grade, and just being blown away. Till then, I didn’t know there was an art in prose composition; but, not only that, I remember thinking that this was everything I’d always thought in my whole life, yet could never put into words:

Life, liberty, rationality, selfishness. No one is entitled to your effort. Your effort belongs to you. Anyone who tries to use force against you, or tries to mooch off you, is a parasite.

I get the feeling a lot of you guys would like Ayn Rand, from the tone of the messages here, especially The Fountainhead: Howard Roark is the original MGHOW.

Have you seen the movie series based on the John Galt cycle? There are also DVDs and websites devoted to her life story and thinking.

If you want to know where we end up when we implement Rand’s vision of an isolated place almost completely unfettered by any sort of government intervention(including taxes, welfare, regulation, etc) and everyone survives purely on their own merit and ability  – we actually have such a place today. It operates with a system of governance almost identical to the one at Galt’s Gultch.

It’s called Somalia.