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Welcome to the holler

Note: The following is another in a series of columns on subjects of a philosophical or ethical nature by a Schuyler County resident who prefers to go by the nom de plume of A. Moralis -- a reference to what the writer sees as the lack of a moral compass in this country during this rapidly changing Age of the Internet.

By A. Moralis

Some interesting statistics were presented on the national news the other night.

Seventy-seven percent of the American public thought Congress was doing a poor job, an opinion spanning party lines. The news story did not state how exactly this percentage was derived, but a good guess is that it had to do with finances, given our current state of affairs.

But love or hate your Congressman and Senators -- support what they do or decry it -- we have now either been blessed or cursed with the start of National Health Care, which already is proving to be quite interesting.

Why exactly do our government leaders, mostly the Democrats, want the public to believe that they have all the answers, and encourage a dependency on Big Brother? Well, yes, it has something to do with convincing that public to vote for them down the road. Politicians' motives are perhaps understandable.

But what's the motivation, other than sloth, on the part of the recipients of government's largesse? Why become dependent upon public charity? Consider the American Eskimos and Indians. The government gave them land and money, and created laziness and sloth. Was this the intention? Who knows? But giving them a free ride really has not helped the Indians or Eskimos, at least in the overview and the long term. Has it?

Another example: welfare families that have spanned generations. Was this the intention? Probably not, but when you can get something for free, it is far too easy to slide.

On the other side of the coin is capitalism. Where is the responsibility of big businesses that enter into a geographic area on a short-term basis, reaping a huge profit and then leaving? An example: the coal mining companies that invaded parts of Kentucky, almost like locusts, taking what they wanted and leaving behind shanty towns that the poor inhabited. Gone was the money, in its wake a population living in squalor, with no way to support themselves.

The government also does this to Middle Class America, in a way. It takes and takes and takes by way of taxing and taxing and taxing until there is nothing left. The only thing is, the government never leaves. It just taxes some more.

Dependency is a funny thing, isn’t it?

Our ever-increasing reliance upon the government may be starting to cause our society to collapse around us. As the government attempts to assert control, first by bailing out industry (think AIG, GM, and Lehman Brothers), then by providing the Stimulus Funds, and now through ObamaCare, don't you wonder where this will lead?

What will happen if our government keeps pushing for more and more control over our needs and wants? Will that drain us of our independence and creativity? What, ultimately, will be left besides a welfare state? What will happen to our children’s and grandchildren’s futures?

If this is beginning to sound a little like Atlas Shrugged, it should. If the increasing government regulations and a concomitant decrease in personal initiative continue, perhaps Galt’s Gulch is not that far in our future.

Written in 1957 by Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged is a novel set in America, with this country the last holdout against a worldwide trend toward Marxist-like "People States" -- the last country with some semblance of a free economy.

The book follows America as it gradually becomes a “People’s State” itself. Galt’s Gulch is the secluded valley where the great men of mind and action go to hide from the increasing number of parasites who feed off of big government as American democracy decays; these great men go on strike, in effect, from government control. They have disappeared from sight mysteriously, surfacing only near the end to reconstruct society after their acumen has been missed so severely that the government has collapsed.

Galt's Gulch is a place symbolic of the deep hole a society can fall into when it turns from free-market principles to socialism.

In Galt’s Gulch, we find talented, ambitious, contented people continuing to pursue their chosen fields free of government regulation. They revere private property; and pay for everything in gold. There is no national health care and no welfare. People help each other without mandates.

It is a holdout -- a secret society in a world that has devoured initiative in the masses. It is a sad commentary on a sad time. And yet it is a beacon of hope.

It is a place that we should consider in this economically perilous time, a time in which government is becoming bigger in our lives by leaps and bounds. Atlas Shrugged is a cautionary tale -- and Galt's Gulch a cautionary locale -- that should have us asking:

When did we, as a nation, become tired of our freedoms and decide to turn to dependency?

And why?

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Previous A. Moralis columns:

The first one is here.
The second one is here.
The third one is here.
The fourth one is here.
The fifth one is here.
The sixth one is here.
The seventh one is here.
The eighth one is here.
The ninth one is here.