Galt's Gulch

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  • Posted by freedomforall 7 years, 8 months ago
    It wasn't Rand fans. It was those who want to stop the truth Rand exposes and explains. They didn't steal the books because they value the content; they stole them because they feel they must stop the spread of the ideals of free markets, trading value for value, and individual productivity.
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    • Posted by $ MikeMarotta 7 years, 8 months ago
      I considered that, but it does not hold up to examination. Of the 654 copies of the works of Karl Marx, almost none are missing. I checked the first 100 entries. Missing are two different editions of Das Kapital (in English) and a rare book, Marx's essay on the Paris Commune. Communists respect public property. Applying your logic, over 200 books by Marx should be gone as patriots, conservatives, libertarians, and Objectivists purge them from the shelves. They don't do that, and not because they value the importance of discussing ideas. They do not want the books for themselves, so they do not steal them. Ockham's Razor applies.

      Also, the entries that are "Missing Billed" were checked out by someone, but never returned. The library knows who had the book last, and, in theory, those patrons could have their school records closed: no transcripts will be issued. At the least, the patron would owe a fine. It is not within the calculations of a communist to assume that burden... but it is within the calculations of a self-styled capitalist.

      Consider the honors bestowed here on Ragnar Danneskjold: t-shirts, shot glasses... He is not just a literary figure, a symbol for an idea, like Batman or the Green Lantern. Rather like the Gulch itself, some people take it literally.
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      • Posted by CircuitGuy 7 years, 7 months ago
        I have no idea who's stealing/losing the books, but I wouldn't put it past people who have not read them and think the books literally support a form of fascism. Your Danneskjold point makes sense too.

        I could not stand Danneskjold. I found him to be a contemptible character. For some reason I like John Galt, maybe it was the buildup to him or that he probably dealt with that self-righteous shrew who was responsible of dolling out benefits to workers. I never saw his goal of stopping the motor of the world as being literal but rather the story saying even the best producers will want to destroy if the right to keep what they produce is not respected. I can't stand the notion of mucking thing stop. The Cash for Clunkers program is the gov't initiative I loath the most because it paid people to ruin perfectly good motors. I also loath the drug war, having a large standing army, sending criminal suspects to places where we know they'll be tortured or murdered. But those things sound like gov't violating people's rights. Cash for Clunkers was sometimes presented as gov't being Santa Claus, which is bad, but doubly bad in that it involved destroying working equipment. Galt wanted to destroy working equipment, but I saw that as a metaphor. Danneskjold just came off as a thief with a typical excuse.
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        • Posted by $ MikeMarotta 7 years, 7 months ago
          Very bold of you to say so... Despite being one of the three bright students, Ragnar Danneskjold was not well developed as a character. Not only do we not see much of him "in action" Rand did not explain at all how he carried out his trades. We know that he sold his cargo for gold, but where did the gold come from? Usually, it would not matter, but in the context of Atlas Shrugged it is material and consequential. Those People's States must have virtuous producers engaged in underground activities. And they must be profitable in order to afford to pay in gold for what Danneskjold brings them. In the post-war times of Ayn Rand's flourit relief ships were daily news. They carried food, of course, but also machine tools, etc. Even if the primary cargo were food, it was still paid for with gold, again, by means and methods that were not well explained.
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      • Posted by freedomforall 7 years, 8 months ago
        Your speculations are no better, and that is why I offered another alternative (albeit somewhat tongue-in-cheek.) So go find out if you actually care. Spend your funds to hire a real investigator to examine the motives of those who are known. Without more details you are just wasting your time and making unsupportable public accusations.
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  • Posted by NauticalSaunas 7 years, 8 months ago
    Stealing from a public property is not inherently moral. Public property should be perceived for what it is: property that is owned in shares by every taxpayer. Stealing public property is equivalent to taking something that you only own one-one hundredth or one-one thousandth of.
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    • Posted by $ MikeMarotta 7 years, 8 months ago
      I agree with you, but the reply would come, "I am not stealing all of the books (or trees), just my share of them." Defeating such niggling over details requires a more fundamental examination: the morality of the producer.
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      • Posted by $ blarman 7 years, 8 months ago
        That logic doesn't hold up either.

        Any time there is a "public" trust set up - whether it be roads, utilities, or a library, there are always appointed stewards who are given charge over that public trust. Any dispensation of the resources must be through that approved steward or it is theft. (And if the steward unwisely disposes of the resources, it is called embezzlement.)
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      • Posted by $ Radio_Randy 7 years, 7 months ago
        In reality, many books are donated to libraries, or purchased by different organizations...I have done so, myself. There is nothing in the article that states these books were purchased with public funds and I doubt the thief or thieves cared, either way.
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  • Posted by Joseph23006 7 years, 7 months ago
    Stealing from from the "public' is stealing from one's self and denying others the opportunity to learn unless you fear that which might be learned. In this day and age many have chosen to close their minds to alternative ideas, much to their loss.
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  • Posted by Herb7734 7 years, 7 months ago
    By being a citizen, you have a contract with the country, state, county city to obey the laws of those places. Residency as well obligates you to obey those laws whether you like them or not, or whether you agree with them or not. That leaves you with two alternative options. Either work to change the laws, or leave the country.
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  • Posted by BeenThere 7 years, 8 months ago
    "If you do not understand why productively earning the money with which to buy a book is in your self-interest while the easy pickings of the public library are not, you need to do some reading. It is a common error in our common education that we want even our “story problems” to be short, when in fact, the most important aspects of living well require more than a slogan to explain."

    That says it all. BT
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  • Posted by $ Thoritsu 7 years, 7 months ago
    Libraries are irrelevant in today's society, held up by the few over 30's and beyond that still use Facebook.

    I don't know who benefits from Ayn Rand's copyrights these days, but I'm in for $1,000 to replace these works as they are stolen by intellectual cowards, as long as the evidence of cowardice, equivalent to "anti-heliocentric belief" by socialists, is recorded and provided openly.

    Any other takers?
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    • Posted by $ MikeMarotta 7 years, 7 months ago
      (2) The books were taken by Rand Fans, not by socialists. We can argue that if you wish, but I consider it Ockham's view of the problem.

      (1) Nice of you to volunteer to replace the books. I am still waiting for my unit insignias from Star Trek Axanar. But if you check the catalog, you will see that they replaced those and others. I think that it is part of the budget, unfortunately, as some percentage of books must go missing all the time, unfortunately.

      (3) Libraries remain highly relevant. Information online is too fluid and dynamic. Books are more permanent. I have seven almanacs from 1949 - 2002 on my own shelf, just for instance...
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      • Posted by $ Thoritsu 7 years, 7 months ago
        2-Could be. Doesn't seems very Rand-ian .
        3-I like reference "books" that I can flip through. Just about everything else I use the web or an e-copy. Haven't been in a library in ~15 years.
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        • Posted by $ MikeMarotta 7 years, 7 months ago
          Our experiences are different. To me, as I noted above re: Ragnar Danneskjold it seems all-too-Randian. That is why I wrote the object essay.

          I value my public libraries. I hold a city library gold card for a cash contribution some years back. One of the benefits to me of being in Austin is that the UT library offers me more privileges than my own alma mater which reduced my status when I completed my master's. Despite the heroic efforts of Google Books, not everything is online.

          In 1989-1991, I served on a White House Conference on Libraries and Information Systems. I believe that public libraries are more important than public schools.

          Do you know the scene in The Time Machine (1960), "Books... yes, we have books..."
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQ4lD...

          But, as I said, I accept that our experiences are different.
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  • Posted by $ allosaur 7 years, 7 months ago
    Best to my egg-sized dino memory, I paid around $26 for my paperback copy of Atlas Shrugged at Barnes and Nobles. That costs more than most books.
    Sometimes I buy Prevagen so I will have a larger human memory some day.
    That for 30 tablets costs, uh, er, um, I think around $52 and that costs way more than all competing products far as I know..
    My local Walgreen's had to lock Prevagen up due to heavy shoplifting until recently.
    Now it's back on the shelf with a visible warning that the door alarm will sound if someone tries to smuggle it outside.
    So maybe the book store cost is a reason why Atlas Shrugged gets heisted from libraries.
    Still, you'd think someone who read the book would return it. Libraries often have slot boxes in which a repentant thief could drop a book off and slip away unnoticed.
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  • Posted by DrZarkov99 7 years, 8 months ago
    The library could have afforded the loss of all copies of "Night of January 16th." Rand's complete lack of understanding of forensics stands out glaringly in the play, and detracts from her clever device of having the audience act as the jury.
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