American Thinker – Finding John Galt by Henry Oliner

John Galt is the mysterious hero lurking in the background in Ayn Rand’s infamous novel, Atlas Shrugged. He is the industrialist who went into hiding and led a strike of producers fed up with the physical and moral encroachment from a government of moral supremacists who rationalized theft with childish notions of fairness but no conception of the actual production of wealth. That synopsis should also explain why Atlas Shrugged, first published in 1957, is having a very strong resurgence in popularity.

I meet with two different groups of independent business owners focused in the southeast and their perception of current business conditions is almost unanimous. They are angry. They face conflicting and unclear regulations, and a near certainty of increasing taxes . They are impatient. Many are not profitable and are unable and unwilling to tolerate customers who cannot pay, employees who do not think, banks without judgment, and a government that despises their efforts to create wealth and jobs.

Unlike John Galt, they have not abandoned their factories and homes and headed to Colorado, but they have reduced expenses, laid off workers, and rejected growth because of the added risk. They have conserved cash because banks are not willing to lend and government is too willing to take.

Elected official have won their positions from the popular vote, but they have neglected the other votes.

We vote with our wallets. We do not want to buy what they want to sell. We will not invest if taxes on investment returns are too high. We will not start and expand businesses if you tax and regulate them into money losers.

We vote with our feet. We leave high tax states and moves to low tax states. Company close plants in unreceptive countries and move to receptive countries. We exit highly regulated industries and move capital into businesses with more certainty and flexibility.

But we also vote with our hearts. With government pay double that of the private sector, with a torrent of legislation killing small businesses, with crony capitalism replacing main street capitalism, and with an endless and clear stream of propaganda from the bully pulpit, the message is clear- the private sector is for suckers. Starting businesses, creating new products, jobs, and funding schools, hospitals and the arts are all good things and our government is making it increasingly harder to accomplish. This is why corporations are sitting on top of trillions of dollars in cash. Because of the insanity currently posing as legislation and policy, their hearts are not in it.

They have ‘gone Galt’. They have dropped out of the producer ranks, not totally like Ayn Rand’s hero, but in parts. They work less, retire early, and conserve resources because they do not trust their government.

I found John Galt in the mirror and I found John Galts sharing their fears and frustrations around the tables at meeting rooms and restaurants. They are dropping out in whatever little ways they can.

I’ll bet you found him too.

Henry Oliner

C.S. Lewis – Mere Christianity

Quote of the day – Gene Simmons

Gene Simmons of KISS from 30daysout.wordpress.com

“I wasn’t born here. But I have a love for this country and its people that knows no bounds. I will forever be grateful to America for going into World War II, when it had nothing to gain, in a country that was far away… and rescued my mother from the Nazi German concentration camps. She is alive and I am alive because of America. And, if you have a problem with America, you have a problem with me.” Gene Simmons

70 members of Congress belong to the Socialist party

Two things of note in this revelation. The first is the astonishing number of Democratic House members who not only belong to the Socialist Party of America but even more incredible, don’t mind if people find out about it.

From the Discover The Networks : “Until 1999, the Progressive Caucus website was hosted by the Democratic Socialists of America. After the press reported on this link, the connections suddenly vanished from both organizations’ websites.”

As DTN also points out, the Progressive Caucus works hand in glove with George Soros funded ‘Progressive Challenge,’ which is a project of the hard left Institute for Policy Studies.

from the American Thinker.

Hon. Raúl M. Grijalva (AZ-07) is the Arizona Congressman who said (and I paraphrase) “go ahead and boycott Arizona. We deserve it” over the immigration law that is now tangled up in court thanks to Eric Holder’s DOJ.

Is it any wonder we are in such a mess when we have this many far leftists in Congress?

The Auschwitz Convent controversy – Just because you can do it, doesn’t make it right

In 1984 Cardinal Macharski, archbishop of Cracow, announced the establishment of a Carmelite convent in Auschwitz in a building on the camp periphery which had originally been a theater but was utilized during World War II to store the poison gas used in the Auschwitz-Birkenau crematoria.

Outrage by a worldwide Jewish population ensued. Their claim, and rightfully so, was that Auschwitz was a sacred place to Jews. 90% of those killed there were Jewish. And the Catholic Church was wrong to even consider this. It took several years of wrangling and it appears that the Church stalled several times in those years.

As the new deadline of July 22, 1989, approached, tensions rose still higher. … The situation reached a flashpoint when an American rabbi, Avraham “Avi” Weiss, and six colleagues dressed in concentration camp garb scaled the walls of the convent blew a shofar, and screamed “Nazi antisemites.” Polish workmen at the site demanded that they leave and then poured paint and water on the protesters and physically removed them from the site. Reactions were divided in the Jewish world to the demonstration, but Polish sources portrayed it as an attempted attack on the nuns. The deadline passed with a march around the convent by 300 European Jewish students, to the sound of the shofar. In August Cardinal Macharski announced that in reaction to the Jewish campaign, the agreement was to be canceled and the nuns would remain where they were.

In August 1989 and in reaction to the Jewish demonstrations, the archbishop of Warsaw, Cardinal Glemp, delivered a sermon in Czestochowa to a congregation of 100,000 including the Polish premier, which was seen as antisemitic when he called on the Jews “not to talk to us from the position of a superior nation and do not dictate terms that cannot be fulfilled…. Your strength is in the mass media, at your disposal in many countries. Do not use it to spread anti-Polonism.”

Cardinal Glemp’s remarks were condemned by many Catholics, including Lech Walesa and 4 other Cardinals who had signed the original agreement with a Jewish delegation in Geneva to move the convent. His sermon was inexcusable.

Shortly thereafter the Vatican [Pope John Paul II] spoke out for the first time, supporting the relocation of the convent in order to restore good relations with the Jews.

Although the original deadline for the new complex, set in 1990, proved overly optimistic, work progressed on the interfaith center and the convent, which was ready in 1993. Nevertheless the nuns continued to be reluctant to leave the old building, and this was only accomplished in the summer of 1993 following a letter from the pope and pressure from the Polish Bishops’ Conference. Seven of the 14 nuns agreed to move to the new convent, the others going elsewhere. Jewish-Catholic relations returned to normal and the dialogue was resumed. In particular Jews were encouraged by the understanding that had been evinced towards Jewish sensibilities by many Catholic quarters.

Source.

Two Catholic prisoners of Auschwitz have been sainted: Father Maximilian Kolbe and St. Teresa Benedicta (Edith Stein, a converted Jew and Carmelite nun.)

Maximilian was born in 1894 in Poland and became a Franciscan. He contracted tuberculosis and, though he recovered, he remained frail all his life. Before his ordination as a priest, Maximilian founded the Immaculata Movement devoted to Our Lady. After receiving a doctorate in theology, he spread the Movement through a magazine entitled “The Knight of the Immaculata” and helped form a community of 800 men, the largest in the world.

Maximilian went to Japan where he built a comparable monastery and then on to India where he furthered the Movement. In 1936 he returned home because of ill health. After the Nazi invasion in 1939, he was imprisoned and released for a time. But in 1941 he was arrested again and sent to the concentration camp at Auschwitz.

On July 31, 1941, in reprisal for one prisoner’s escape, ten men were chosen to die. Father Kolbe offered himself in place of a young husband and father. And he was the last to die, enduring two weeks of starvation, thirst, and neglect. He was canonized by Pope John Paul II in 1982. His feast day is August 14th.

~~~

Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein)Virgin and Martyr Edith Stein, born in 1891 in Breslau, Poland, was the youngest child of a large Jewish family. She was an outstanding student and was well versed in philosophy with a particular interest in phenomenology. Eventually she became interested in the Catholic Faith, and in 1922, she was baptized at the Cathedral Church in Cologne, Germany. Eleven years later Edith entered the Cologne Carmel. Because of the ramifications of politics in Germany, Edith, whose name in religion was Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, was sent to the Carmel at Echt, Holland. When the Nazis conquered Holland, Teresa was arrested, and, with her sister Rose, was sent to the concentration camp at Auschwitz. Teresa died in the gas chambers of Auschwitz in 1942 at the age of fifty-one. In 1987, she was beatified in the Cologne Cathedral by Pope John Paul II. Out of the unspeakable human suffering caused by the Nazis in western Europe in the 1930’s and 1940’s, there blossomed the beautiful life of dedication, consecration, prayer, fasting, and penance of Saint Teresa. Even though her life  was snuffed out by the satanic evil of genocide, her memory stands as a light undimmed in the midst of evil, darkness, and suffering. She was canonized on October 11, 1998.

Source.

Campaigning this week with Obama

Ben Feller/AP

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama is out to make sure his presence pays for Democrats, launching a three-day fundraising trip on Monday in which he will touch nearly every region of the nation and play up his economic agenda.

His stops include a glitzy Hollywood fundraiser. Oh to be a fly on the wall there: being among the elite who think that Americans are redneck morons who don’t know what’s good for them.

The most important sentence is this one:

By pairing official events with political ones, the White House can bill taxpayers for most of the cost of the trip.

Once again, we will be paying for the Democrat’s campaigns. I don’t know about anyone else but, I don’t want MY tax dollars being used for this. It’s a given that we have to pay for his security, no matter where he goes or what he does, but to pay for him to campaign for his party, really makes me see red – and you, too if you’re reading this.

All together, Obama will visit Wisconsin, California, Washington, Ohio and Florida before returning to the nation’s capital Wednesday night. Each stop involves tight races in states that could be vital to Obama himself in 2012.

The second most important paragraph is that this is about getting him re-elected. But really, those states aside from maybe Florida, are going to go for him again, no matter what. California, Washington and Wisconsin are a lock for him. Ohio and Florida might be iffy. It will be interesting to see how his campaigning will help those candidates.

The icon of simpler times: Elvis Presley

Until 9/11/01 – and no day will ever replace that –  the landmark day in my life was the day Elvis died. I was only 20 years old but remember it very clearly. I was in the bathtub getting ready for a job interview when I heard it on the tv. I was just newly married, a college student and was interviewing for the job as dorm “mother” to an all male dorm.

In the late ’50’s when I was born and my mom was in her mid to late 20’s, Elvis was her favorite. Like my kids who grew up on the Beatles, I grew up on Elvis.

I was a little out of step with my peers in 1977 because I loved Elvis, even then. I think Elvis, the icon, and his music is timeless. Las Vegas was his second home and he’s still spotted on every other corner there. He reminds us of a time when life was simple and safe: You came in from playing when the streetlights came on, teenagers didn’t swear in front of ANY adult at ANY time and it was safe to walk to school and back.