Destroy the Future By Destroying the Past

As I drive around the country taking pictures, I am noticing an odd phenomena.

Everywhere I look, I see frantic, frenetic work tearing down our factories.

Once these were symbols of our industriousness. Now there is some kind of coordinated hurry to make it all go away.

Do you suppose that maybe the reason is to make sure that the American industry that has now relocated to China never comes back?

Oh, yeah, this is the one my father managed
during my childhood; and the one where I
spent my college summers working,

Time to Reread Atlas Shrugged

It always amazes me how prescient she was. She saw all this coming fifty years ago and more. As you may or may not know, I spend my Saturdays touring the vanishing small towns taking pictures of what is left of the industry that made the United States great. Yesterday, the Saturday after the election of he who will provide prosperity by government spending,

I walked through the ruins of an old factory in a one factory town. There is not much left, but people. After the factory left, the company that bought the factory couldn't restore the glory and tore it down for scrap only to quit half way through. The businesses of the town shuttered. The people stayed on. Some owned, some rented, some squatted. Some commute to the next town to ride its factory down, and the rest just wait for their relief check. I could see myself walking with Dagny and Hank Rearden looking through the rubble to find the secret of the motor to run the universe in this, the wreckage of our prosperity surrounded by the people who thought that the jobs that the factory provided were theirs by virtue of their need. I have seen so many of these now but I cannot seem to become inured to them.

This election is proof that more than half of our country think that the can get more out of the equation that they put in. Providing something of value -- your own labor -- is unnecessary to derive benefit, whether that be food, shelter, or even medicine.

We can tax corporations to provide our needs -- why is the price going up? It must be their greed.
We can tax the rich to provide our needs -- the sum total of the wealth of the Fortune five hundred won't drive the country but a day. Two at the most. And then they are gone, greedy bastards, deserting us. They must work for our needs. We nee...no, no, we don't -- They need us. Of course they do. From each according to his ability to each according to his need. And the rich need us, the poor. What for?