Atlas is Shrugging

Ayn Rand's 1957 opus, Atlas Shrugged, tells a tale of a dystopian world where the government and society slips deeper and deeper into the socialist delusion of a perfect “collectivist” world at the expense of the individual. The protagonist industrialists are subjected to heavy handed political tyrants who view the fruits of corporate labors and inventiveness as rightful property of the collective. Through manipulative means and in the name of “the collective good”, the hero and heroine are subjected to government interference and institutionalized theft at every turn. As a Soviet expatriate (and therefore very familiar with the subject matter), Rand tells a frightening, cautionary tale about the power, inventiveness and creativity of the individual and the inevitably corrupt nature of socialist governments.

My assessment of the narrative, once I had finished reading it, was that the events described therein would be impossible in the United States. How gullible and naïve of me. The recent news about the National Labor Relations Board's investigation and attempt to halt the creation of Boeing's Dreamliner manufacturing plant in Charleston South Carolina reads precisely like an event from Rand's voluminous epic.

Claiming Boeing was acting out of “anti-union animus” and the effect would be “discouraging membership in a labor organization”, the NLRB charged Boeing had violated federal law. What law, you ask? No one seems to know. Businesses relocate to states offering more advantageous conditions for operation all of the time. Furthermore, Boeing was not closing down existing plants in unionized Washington state, they were simply opening a new plant to supplement production of it's popular Dreamliner aircraft.

Apparently, the NLRB wants to dictate how Boeing does it's business. I suppose we shouldn't be surprised, after all, the Obama administration has been appointing former union leaders to the NLRB and has received millions in campaign contributions from organized labor. Craig Becker (who once argued that workers should not have any right to opt out of union membership) was appointed as head of the NLRB during a Senatorial recess, effectively bypassing the Senate's constitutional mandate to approve executive branch appointees. The president knew the loophole would be the only way to appoint Becker without public scrutiny. He has acted as consultant and lawyer for such organizations as the AFL\CIO, SEIU and ACORN.

The obvious political backscratching and cronyism on display should be alarming. That a government organization headed by an individual with such deep allegiances to organized labor would so blatantly target private business and the potential workers in a right-to-work state with little to no scrutiny by the mainstream press should scare the wits out of every citizen who is paying attention.

The message the Obama administration and the NLRB seems to be sending is that if you are unemployed in a right-to-work state, you are a non-issue. For all their talk of job creation and economic growth, this policy indicates that campaign politics are more important than individual (or even communal) prosperity, as far as the left is concerned.

What can we do? The left would love it if we simply shrugged it off and considered it a non-issue, but we cannot. Truthfully, if you live in South Carolina, contacting your representative will not do much good. Our Senators and Congressmen are solidly on the pro-right-to-work, conservative side (with the exception of James Clyburn who unquestioningly sides with the Federal Government, no matter how harmful the policy is to his constituents).

You can, however, communicate this farce to your acquaintances, who may, in turn, tell their acquaintances. Facebook, email, texting, twitter... all are invaluable tools we can use to get the information out that the liberal worshiping mainstream press knows would not go over well with the majority of our state. When the presidential election of 2012 rolls around and our electoral duty is upon us, the citizens of South Carolina (and every other state) must know how little regard the left has for the unemployed.

It is within our power to ensure our nation remains the most extraordinary civil society the world has ever known. The day we allow our Federal Government to dictate to our private businesses where they can and cannot create jobs is the day we allow our world to crash down from Atlas's shoulder in a final, calamitous shrug.

Who is John Galt, indeed.  

The South Carolina Amazon.com Debacle

An open letter to the Tea Party:

How far we’ve come since Rick Santelli encouraged the creation of a new Tea Party to oppose “the government's support of fiscal irresponsibility”.

Capped off with the historic beating the Democrats took in the House of Representatives, we’ve had success after success with our movement and put the fear of the people back into our politicians. They understand that they will not get away with totally ignoring the will of the people, no matter how many agenda driven, policy parroting mouthpieces they have in the national mainstream media and no matter how hard they work to smear us.

With this success in mind, we cannot allow our movement to be used by those who lose site of what it is that we stand for. That is: individual liberty, private property rights and the opposition to a massive, out of control government who thinks the only way it can feed its ravenous fiscal appetite is through a tyrannical, confiscatory tax policy.

I now believe some who have appointed themselves “leaders” of our movement have done just that. Not only have they lost site of those principals, they’ve blatantly tossed them aside and sided with tax-mongers on the left. Here’s a quote from Jamie Sanderson, Former Democratic Party chairman of Georgetown County about the recent Amazon tax bill and the Tea Party’s involvement:

"Tea party or no tea party, it's about not selling out the state at thrift-store prices. The state has already cheapened itself enough by having one of the lowest corporate tax rates, being against working people and maintaining profits for big business. So, what else could it do? Give away free land? Even more tax breaks? Please. Go somewhere else, then. It seems to me they weren't dedicated enough to begin with, only contingent on getting a sweet deal.

What was done protected government. It protected sources for revenue. It protected what Republicans can't lie about anymore.”

That’s right… it protected GOVERNMENT.

By the way: his claim that this was a vote against “maintaining profits for big business” is laughable. After all, all those advertisements against the tax deal we saw on the television from “Main Street Alliance for Fairness” were bought and paid for by Walmart, Target, Bestbuy and other “mega-mart” retailers. This group was successful in misleading people, including the choice of their organization’s name. They are not a local group or alliance for local small businesses as their name suggests. For the past year, they’ve been waging an anti-Amazon campaign across the country. And they’ve succeeded. We’ve just treated this high-tech business the same way liberal states like California has.

Furthermore, his statement about “sources of revenue” simply illustrates the left’s mindset: businesses are purely considered sources of tax revenue for the government. The economic security, growth and prosperity of the communities they move in to mean little to the left. They can be allowed to operate as long as they provide cash flow for the tax collectors and a steady revenue stream with which they can fund their entitlement programs (and buy votes in the process).

These past few weeks, the self appointed “Tea Party” leaders encouraged us to help them. Face it: you’ve been duped, Tea Party. Why the “leaders” of the Tea Party committed to such a cause, I’ll never understand. Why they actively worked to keep our state at an economic disadvantage against other states, I’ll never understand. Why they sided with the left on this anti-business stance, I will never understand.

Think about it… you’ve just taken a stand FOR taxes. After screaming and yelling our heads off about spending and taxation for two years, we’ve just sided with the left on taxes. Should we also agree with Mr. Sanderson that our Corporate Tax rate is too low? Perhaps we should agree with his insinuation that we should drop our right-to-work status because it means our position is “against working people”? I would remind Mr. Sanderson that it’s hard to be against working people when the people aren’t working. And it is his position that just prevented 1200 people from working.

I know the leaders of the Tea Party painted this as “standing up for local business” and “no more secret deals with businesses” but that’s not what this was about. Amazon does not compete with local business. People who shop online are not the same customers who shop downtown or locally, now or after Amazon opened up shop here.

The sales tax exemption was only for five years. The benefits not only included the added jobs, but the added cash flow those employees would have brought to the community. More money for the local restaurants from lunch breaks, increased traffic for gas stations, money from shipping truck maintenance for local garages… the local economic impact of a large distribution center are nearly immeasurable.

As members of a movement, we must not lose site of our goals and principals. Private property rights, a free market and LESS government are among the most important principals. We cannot allow those who would appoint themselves as our leaders dupe us again. The real power of the Tea Party is the fact that it is a genuine grass roots movement. We have no one telling us how to think or what our principles are. We are not motivated by special interest groups nor are we susceptible to their influence. Politicians know this and are very aware that our motivations are genuine and that we will not rest until we are sure they have listened and that if they do not listen, we hold them accountable. Republican or Democrat… they will be held accountable.

I intend to use my blog to help anyone who would listen understand conservative principles and how they are what have made our country the freest and most prosperous civil society the world has ever known. As citizens of the United States, we have a lot of power so every political stance we take should be measured against these principles so that tragic mistakes like this Amazon debacle are not repeated.

TheState.com Article about the Amazon.com vote