Why you should see Atlas Shrugged

  It was the year 2016 and we were all finally equal.  
  Having heard about Atlas Shrugged for years but not having read it, I wasn't sure what to expect when I see it this weekend.
  Atlas Shrugged is pretty clearly an indie film, which often have a different feel, different audio, different filming, different plot lines, different approaches.
  This isn't disconcerting, particularly since many of the film locations are not only believable, but gorgeous. Well, at least gorgeous when the scene is depicting the rich as opposed to the poor, who are prowling the streets looking for government handouts from the "Ministry of Welfare." Mainstream America looks like a cross between the 30s and Mad Max.
  The actors are fairly effective, particularly the Hank Reardon character, although some of the dialog is a bit stilted, as if lifted quickly from the book, rather than glossing a script to adapt to movies.
  Believe it or not, these essential film elements seem secondary.
  The film is most remarkable because it is set in 2016, written over 50 years ago, and feels spookily contemporary, considering the incidents of the last year and a half.
  Who would have thought that in only a year and a half the feds would have taken over industries, paid people's mortgages, encouraged insurrection, furnished new furnaces and appliances for some (certain) people, forgiven credit card debt, taken over even student loans and on and on.
  Several laugh out loud moments in the film weren't planned comedic moments, but rather guffaws of familiarity.
  For example, scheming and nefarious political leaders pass a bill called the "equalization of opportunity" act, which means, of course, that everything is dumbed down so government can control the outcomes of certain businesses to their own advantages. 
  Everything and nothing is for the public good. Later it is explained that the primary reason a promising company closed was because workers were paid for their "need rather than their contributions." The company went bankrupt.
  An academic is confronted about a "truth" of which he was knowledgeable. He responds, "Which truth?" which underscores the shifting sands upon which the culture is built.
  Selfishness is common, but not acknowledged. A liberal progressive asks his brother for money for his progressive foundation, but asks that the check be made out to himself because if the foundation saw the brother's capitalist moniker on the check they'd be distressed to know their money had its roots in profit. Of course, they'd take the money but it might be uncomfortable.
  "Who is John Galt" is described pretty well in the Wikipedia entry; he represents fierce individualism and smaller government.
  The most recent and sickening example of dangerous federal intervention in private business is the Boeing situation where the NLRB is trying to force the private company out of building a new plant in a right to work state and back into the union controlled  state of Washington where they had already had union trouble. 
  From the Washington Examiner:

Can federal bureaucrats tell a private company where to build a factory? 

Members of President Obama's National Labor Relations Board think they can. In a decision that even the New York Times is describing as "highly unusual for the federal government," Lafe Solomon, who was appointed to the board by Obama, filed a complaint on behalf of the NLRB on Wednesday seeking to force the Boeing Co. to build an assembly line in Washington state instead of South Carolina.

  Of course, the feds have found some "unlawful employer speech" they want to prosecute; the unions in Washington wanted, of course, more than the company was willing to offer. The WSJ says, "The talks broke down because the union wanted, among other things, a seat on Boeing's board and a promise that Boeing would build all future airplanes in Puget Sound."
  Has the federal government grown too big?
  We all know it has.
  Mark Steyn gives us  a great example over at NRO. He crossed over from Canada to Vermont and had his children's chocolate Kinder eggs confiscated, with a $300 threatened fine and a $250 seized egg storage fee.
  NRO, Steyn first quotes the government and then comments:

The Food and Drug Administration has issued an import alert for Kinder Eggs, because they are a confectionery product with a non-nutritive object imbedded in it. As in years past, CBP, the Food and Drug Administration and CPSC work in close collaboration to ensure the safety of imported goods by examining, sampling and testing products that may present such import safety hazards. Last year, CBP officers discovered more than 25,000 of these banned chocolate eggs. More than 2,000 separate seizures were made of this product.

Let’s see – CBP, FDA, CPSC. I’m impressed it takes a mere three agencies from the vast alphabet soup of federal regulation to keep us safe from the menace of confectionery products with non-nutritive embeds.

  Three federal government agencies are involved in preventing chocolate Kinder eggs from entering the country.
  Three.
  One might ask a different question of our politicians.
  Where is John Galt?