axxxel

This is my primary plan. I want to go to the US, but I'm getting more and more skeptical about the future of that nation. The next POTUS might hurry things up even more, and by then I'll be wondering why I left in the first place. EDIT: My point is that eventually, all of us will live in Sweden.

Hi everybody! This is my first post at this site, which I just found by googling "forum objectivism". Presentation of myself My name is Axel Nordberg. I will turn nineteen tomorrow, sunday, and I live in Sweden. Withing the next few months I will graduate from what is the equivialent of high school, and move on to studying machine engineering at a local university. I've wanted to design firearms since I was much more of a kid than I am today, and that is what I wish to use my education for. I started making philosophical conclusions when I was about ten, long before I knew what philosophy was or got interested in politics and such matters. When I was sixteen I had been moderately active in a right wing youth organisation for about a year, and my friend told me about Ayn Rand and gave me a one-sentence description of objectivism. My response was "Hey, that's what I've been thinking all along". I didn't actually start to read her work until years later, but now I've read Atlas Shrugged several times and today I'm a convinced objectivist, still studying essays and trying to root out what differs me from ARI and Ayn Rand (there are a few details that make me smell contradiction). The actual topic Until this week I've believed that the best way to change the course of the world is to politically and democratically oppose the current regime of my nation and others, promoting libertarian parties(*) with objectivist foundations in order to try and change peoples' minds. I imagined that if at least an objectivist/libertarian(*) party could become a major force in the political world of a country, society could be saved before it collapsed into a totalitarian, exhausted pile of junk. The average voter would be constantly exposed to a reasoning alternative to the mockery that is politics today, and eventually everybody would come to their senses and we could all live happily and freely. Recently I've noticed, however, how extremely reluctant people are to accepting valid arguments, and how very, very far below ground level people have buried their brains. Today I heard that the European Union will be enforcing a new passport policy, requiring fingerprints and eye scans in order to prevent terrorism and illegal immigration. The United States is decaying into another Europe. Last week there was a newscast story about rising pasta production costs in Italy, which is heightening living costs for families with children. A number of politicians from a multitude of countries and different social councils were interviewed, urging businessmen not to take advantage of the unfair situation by raising prices. Tonight, as I walked home from a party, I have become completely convinced that society as we know it actually will end the same way it does in Atlas Shrugged. I might sound naive, but it just makes way too much sense to be wrong. I've always pictured my political life the following years to involve activism withing (The Swedish, and tiny) political party called "The Classically Liberal Party", but now I think the best thing to do is just to avoid paying taxes and trying to strain the economy of the government as much as ethically possible. AFAIK this approach is not endorsed by any objectivist organisations (but then again I've pretty much ignored them for a long time), and I wonder why. If I make a carreer in this country more than 50%(propably much more) of what I produce will go to the government. Why should I fuel it? Gaining even a thousand votes for a party that has a view on government coherent with objectivism is worth nothing compared to what the ultimate collapse of a welfare state would be. Violent revolution/reactionary activism is very questionable, as the chance of success and risk of collateral damage are both to our disadvantage. Excuse me if my English is flawed, it's not my first language and I've had quite a bit to drink tonight. (*) It's complicated, but there are political organisations that would be best described as libertarian, whose founders are objectivists.