I never thought of that.

That’s a great quote.

Although, anyone who thinks Atlas Shrugged isn’t pure shit, shouldn’t be on the internet. The very existence of the internet shows how flawed that philosophy is.

– There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.

I know I did. It’s a Libertarian-Free Market-Randian wet dream.

One caveat, though. You wanna live in a place where you can fire off RPGs in your backyard, don’t be upset when your neighbor fires back.

“I know that, QIBie. I wasn’t saying that it was.”

He’s the Nathan Thurm of the blogosphere. Only less effectual.

26 miles? No it isn’t.

Living overseas?

Seriously, Dennis, that’s not what ‘going Galt’ means.

I’d love to make 250K+ a year. That would be swell. That wasn’t going to happen under the Bush II economy, not by a long-shot.

You remain incoherent at best. I’ll leave it at that.

I realize this will essentially turn into ‘Escape from New York,’ but maybe once it’s been tried they can stop fantasizing about it.

Does anybody else think of Ellsworth M. Toohey (from The Fountainhead)

You mean Ayn Rand wrote something else? Huh. Who would’a thunk it?

Hey If Glenn and Dr. Mrs. Perfessor want to go Amish, I say let ‘em.

This is how you already explained it, Jaims:

“The whole Rand thing is truly the philosophy of ignorant 14 year-olds who are incapable of growing up and joining the reality-based community, i.e., 70 percent of adult Americans.”

Not surprisingly, you completely contradict yourself from one post to the next. Only when you are called out for already having done what you are making fun of people for, you say you are not to be compared to a wealthy industrialist, so it therefore doesn’t apply to you.

Why do you have such a hard time understanding how hypocritical you are being. To you it applies to ignorant 14 year olds who are incapable of growing up and joining the reality-based community, but somehow it doesn’t apply to an ignorant 30 year old who is also incapable of growing up and joining the reality-based community here in America.

So do I really have to explain Ayn Rand’s “philosophy” and “literature” to you? Galt is the wealthy mega-industrialist who decides to stop running his empire in order to punish the Communist leeches who are taking all of his money through taxation.

You’re really giving me a lot of credit here, Dennis, but hey, I know how hard it can be to get over a spurned crush.

I moved abroad to make _more_ money, as well as to have new experiences and bolster my resume — those things adult professionals do to “make it” in this topsy-turvy world. And I’m not ashamed to admit that, as a teacher in America, or Korea, or anywhere else in the world, there’s really no threat of me ever making all that much money. I do it because I love it and because I’m good at it.

But please, continue to avoid addressing any points made by reality-based types in this thread. Bush II was an embarrassment to America and he set us back economically and militarily. I had an opportunity to better myself under this very dark cloud in American history, and I took it. If anything, I’m more of a free-marketer than you are. I live and work based on my merit as a teacher. I’ve never gotten a job, a single fucking job, by calling up a former IB or banking buddy and asking him to grease the skids for me.

(Thing is, I have friends in IB and banking, and they’re the first to admit that it’s connections, more than ability, that get you the plum jobs in that line of work. Not so much in teaching, but then again connections are always important to some extent.)