A little background on me:
I was a 60’s liberal, brought up by my parents that way, until the early 90’s when some powerful personal events changed me and shocked my life. ( “crashed and burned” was more like it, at the time. )
I suddenly realized that government couldn’t possibly guarantee me that life would be fair and easy, nor was it their purpose to.
I gradually evolved, rereading “Atlas Shrugged”, which my parents had given me as a teen, but only appreciated as a novel back then. But this time the reading was seen differently.
I read some more of Rand’s works, and by 2000, considered myself a Libertarian, then by about 2008, a full fledged Objectivist. And yes, I now realize the differences. Objectivism is the only philosophy I’ve found that has objective definitions. For example, a Republican can mean almost anything, from liberal to conservative, to Libertarian, as can “Libertarian”. I even found a site years ago, for Libertarian Green Party Nazis. (w00t)
It’s like religion - it means anything anyone wants it to mean at the time.
At some point along the way, I also realized that forced-collectivism was in fact slavery, and I’ve always been against slavery. Only forced-collectivism doesn’t enslave people based on race, nationality or religion, it enslaves people fairly equally, except of course for the rulers. The true “Road To Serfdom”.
But Y’ron Brook made a statement along the lines of what I used in my subject line, and it’s very true.
The big challenge politically is getting people to understand the principles and the philosophy of freedom and capitalism, which led me to write a little book about it, in late 2010. My forte has never been marketing though, and unfortunately it sits beneath 2.5 million some others, at Amazon.com. Some have told me that it might be a good manual for resetting things, after the coming Collapse, which Rand pretty much predicted as far back as the 50’s.
But the biggest obstacle that I see is this:
“We have allowed our constitutional republic to deteriorate into a virtually unchecked direct democracy. Today’s political process is nothing more than a street fight between various groups seeking to vote themselves other people’s money. ( and freedoms? ) Individual voters tend to support the candidate that promises them the most federal loot in whatever form, rather than the candidate who will uphold the rule of law.” --Rep. Ron Paul
Forced-collectivism involves people voting themselves the money and liberty of others, therefore it’s immensely popular… at least until it collapses and people start seeing death camps and all that.
I think they figured that forced-collectivism ( they said “socialism”, but I think that forced-collectivism is really a better term for it ) led to the deaths of at least 100 million people in the last century.
So it seems like getting from point A ( where things are now ) to point B ( a theoretically Objectivist capitalis free world ) involves education of the masses, something they’re not really inclined to be receptive to, unless and until they reach the point of utter desperation, like the founders of this country did under the tyranny of England in their time.
So I greatly admire Y’ron Brook and the ARI, and all others like them, but what a herculean task we have before us, eh?
Melissa Brookstone
Author and Founder of “The Planetary Bill of Rights Project”