America is Shrugging

President Obama’s reelection triggered a ticking time bomb of fed up Americans. Across the country small businesses and large corporations alike are closing their doors or laying off hundreds of employees. The innovators and entrepreneurs of America have been weary of increasing government regulation for quite some time, now. With Obamacare on the horizon those who can leave the market are doing so in droves. 

To those of us familiar with the work of Ayn Rand, particularly her much acclaimed novel Atlas Shrugged; we saw this coming. Rand’s novel portrays a dystopian America, where the government egregiously encroaches on every sector of industry, exploits productive citizens and picks winners and losers through erroneous regulation and taxation. Atlas Shrugged is a mythological reference to the Greek Titan who held up the known world, when he shrugs and no longer cares about his duty, the world falls apart. The fictional America portrayed by Rand is no longer abstract; we are living out this once unfathomable vision of America. 

Families, businesses and individuals across America are now forced to question the fundamental ideas that have made this nation the greatest civilization the world has ever known. America was founded on hard work, hope, freedom and the pursuit of happiness. The Obama administration is systematically destroying our once vibrant profit motive and replacing it with the utopian idea of equality without toil and entitlement without consequence. Hard work is discouraged with disproportionate taxation, and the vilification of the wealthy. The idea of hope has been perverted; hope was once an inspirational idea that through diligence, faith and dedication one could achieve their dream. In Obama’s America, “hope” is now subject to government approval and dependent upon government stimulus. Maximum freedom, the foundation upon which this nation was built has now become a burden for the government to overcome, not a guiding principle. Finally, in today’s America, happiness is to often pursued through government programs, not personal development.

In the aforementioned novel, the working class removes themselves from society, led by John Galt, they take shelter in a hidden valley, where liberty is held dear. Today, business owners and laborers are searching for their own valley, hoping and praying to endure through to looming fiscal nightmare. Today entrepreneurs and innovators are not dreaming of expansion and success, they are dreaming of mere survival. Without a return to our core principles we are destined to fulfill Rand’s prophecy, Atlas Shrugged ends with the lights going off in New York City, symbolizing the final destruction of innovation and liberty. Unless we return to the values that set us on our journey to become that once shining city on a hill, I fear our proverbial lights will go dark as well. 

We must stand and fight for a return to our core values and principles. Take the message of liberty to every corner of this nation, implore your friends, peers and neighbors to truly examine the consequences of our entitlement driven society. 

America is shrugging. Answer her call.