Shades of Atlas Shrugged

[Lloyd Danforth]

If you have read it, you may remember the blurbs at the top of each new chapter page. Stuff like the article below remind me of them.

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/travel/news/Vacationing+human+right+chief+says/2924330/story.html

Vacationing a human right, EU chief says

The European Union has declared travelling a human right, and is launching a scheme to subsidize vacations with taxpayers' dollars for those too poor to afford their own trips.

Antonio Tajani, the European Union commissioner for enterprise and industry, proposed a strategy that could cost European taxpayers hundreds of millions of euros a year, The Times of London reports.

"Travelling for tourism today is a right. The way we spend our holidays is a formidable indicator of our quality of life," Mr. Tajani told a group of ministers at The European Tourism Stakeholders Conference in Madrid on April 15. Mr. Tajani was appointed to his post by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

The plan -- just who gets to enjoy the travel package has yet to be determined -- would see taxpayers footing some of the vacation bill for seniors, youths between the ages of 18 and 25, disabled people, and families facing "difficult social, financial or personal" circumstances. The disabled and elderly can also be accompanied by one other person. The EU and its taxpayers are slated to fund 30% of the cost of these tours, which could range from youth exploring abandoned factories and power plants in Manchester to retirees taking discount trips to Madrid, all in the name of cultural appreciation.

"The commission is literally considering paying people to go on holiday," Mats Persson, of pro-reform think-tank Open Europe, told Britain's News of the World. "In this economic climate, it's astonishing that the EU wants to bribe people with cheap holidays."

Mr. Tajani said the program will be piloted until 2013, and then fully launched.

Intended to instill a sense of cultural pride in Europeans, Mr. Tajani's human-rights travel will also help bridge the continent's north-south divide and pad resorts' business in their off-season, the Times reports.

Northern Europeans will be encouraged to visit southern Europe, and vice versa. Mr. Tajani wants to ensure people's "right to be tourists" remains intact.

[Sam A. Robrin]

IT'S BEGINNING TO LOOK A LOT LIKE ATLAS
It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas/Bing Crosby
COPYRIGHT F 2010 (Yup!) by Sam A. Robrin or whoever the hell it is who writes these things. Go ahead and use it (hey,I lifted the melody), but if you make a little money on it, I want some!

It's beginning to look a lot like Atlas.
  Not that I'm surprised.
    Freedom's casually abused
    By officials who've refused
      To understand
      Ideas Rand
  Devised.

It's beginning to look a lot like Atlas--
  Wait another year.
    Think how bureaucrats would be bugged
    If the competent people shrugged
  Off the whole damn schmeer.

Public policy slights
Constitutional rights--
  State interests are given priority.
That the State has lost touch
And is costing too much
  Is recognized by a majority.
    Even Democrats and Republicans are questioning authority!

It's beginning to look a lot like Atlas.
  Not that I'm surprised.
    The facts have surpassed the fiction's
    Picturesque depictions
      Of a State gone too far,
      Like the USSR
  Disguised.

It's beginning to look a lot like Atlas.
  It's the statists' fault.
    As they take everything I've got,
    The question I have is not
  Who but Where's John Galt?

[Pat K]

 

[jerryswife]

It boggles my mind that these idiots come up with these ideas.  I envision them sitting around stoned saying "Man I couldn't live without Ben & Jerry's ice cream.  Man that is a right!  I think everyone should have that, we should make the rich buy the poor ice cream."
"Yeah, and 3D TV, you have to have 3D TV, otherwise you are totally deprived."
"And a Bowflex.  You need that.  Everyone needs exercise."
"And a hot tub.  That's a basic human right."

Is there anything that they think people should actually work to obtain?  How do their brains get so damaged?

[jerryswife]

And for some of you, BACON.  Bacon is a basic human right/need, we need to subsidize it so everyone can eat more.

[Ogre]

I first read Atlas Shrugged in the 90s (I was a deprived youth). I was amazed at that time how much the world already looked like the one described in the book. It was almost prophetic. And yes, I see more and more the things in the book happening (see: Goldman Sach in bed with Obama).

But I have to tell you, when I read this article, I thought more of 1984. After all, in the real world, words have meanings. But in the world of 1984 and the world of government, words only have the meanings that government wants, when they want it. Once upon a time, a right didn't require anything of anyone. But in today's world, with government as god, government grants all rights, and can only provide them to people by taking from others. I guess that's what bothers me most about this kind of action -- it sets the world up for failure by making government gifts rights.

[MaineShark]

And for some of you, BACON.  Bacon is a basic human right/need, we need to subsidize it so everyone can eat more.

They already subsidize enough bacon...

...although the State's bacon is mostly still on the hoof.

Joe

[Kat Kanning]

None of the copies I read had blurbs at the start of chapters.

[Pat K]

None of the copies I read had blurbs at the start of chapters.

So what are you saying?
Do you want subsidized blurbs, huh is that what ya want.

[Kat Kanning]

Ya, I've been ripped off, I didn't get my constitutionally guaranteed blurbs.

[Lloyd Danforth]

I guess it wasn't chapter headings. Maybe it was when each new year is introduced. When it was revealed that Reagan's wife passed along her Astrologers reports to her husband, it sounded familiar. The next time I read AS, there it was!  Oren Boyle, or, his wife consulting an Astrologist. It was in one of those places in the book.

[Sam A. Robrin]

If you're an old-line Rand-watcher, and had subscriptions to The Objectivist, The Ayn Rand Letter, etc., you may be remembering the clippings Rand ran therein--reminiscent of the National Lampoon's "True Facts" section--which she called "The Horror File."  It wouldn't be difficult to start up one of those--but who would have the room to store all the qualifying material?

[Lloyd Danforth]

No. It was in the novel. I guess, just somewhere in the text. If I read it a seventh time, I will note the pages.

[Jim Johnson]

I ripped mine in half right there where Rearden signed over his steel to the government.
I got a hard cover edition after that.

I recommend that people not read it in any expensive electronic form.

[Kat Kanning]

Having the book in two halves sounds like a good idea to me.