Purpose

"Francisco, what's the most depraved type of human being?"

"The man without a purpose."

- Ayn Rand Atlas Shrugged

   

The tragedy of our existence is that the world is what we see before us.   We have quit, if we ever really did, asking why and have accepted it as the hand dealt to us.   Fearful of making the wrong decision we instead choose to blame a force beyond our individual ability to overcome.  We glibly attribute the failures of the world to frailties inbred in human nature, hiding from our own responsibility.  A responsibility that rests with the individual not the collective, for in reality the collective is nothing more than an opiate for the misery that comes from a lack of purpose.   It is an illusion that allows the individual to avoid the maddening and frightening details of life and become the cog that never has to ask why.   It allows one to throw their hands up and ask "Who is John Galt?". 

    We have built a world of interconnections that strips away individuality and individual responsibility, replacing it with a system which is erroneously heralded for the greater good of the collective.   The individual is ridiculed and belittled as a relic of a bygone era, a vulgar testament to greed and avarice which threatens the whole.   We have accepted the false notion that the financial crisis we face today is the proof of the failure of free market principles, when in reality our financial system is anything but free market in nature.   The free market has been entwined in a fatal embrace with government for so long that one can hardly see where one begins and the other ends.   Industry leaders move in and out of government posts with regularity and ease.   Politicians are seen as gatekeepers to the free market, choosing the winners and losers and extinguishing the purifying fire of failure.   Competence and ability have been weeded out with ruthless abandon, protecting only those with connections to the political system.   When we do not allow failure to be rewarded with destruction how can we expect anything but more failure?   The idea that government and collectivism can save us is the antithesis of what we see laid out before us today.  

    People are searching for a messiah that cannot come from the failures of socialism or communism, but must instead come from the success or failure of each individual.   The discovery of a purpose and the burning desire to see that goal transformed into reality is the engine for the betterment of the world.   The constant purging of failure clears the way for those with the combination of vision and ability to move forward.  
   
    We must fight the urge to protect failed ideas, for to reward failed ideas is the height of immorality and irresponsibility.   Incompetent people, who have sought the easy path in a market controlled and operated by a  parasitic political class, are using fear to drive people to the acceptance of this immoral and irresponsible protectionism.  Vision, ability, and drive are in short supply, all to often overwhelmed by a glut of resignation and hope.   Hope is an emotion for  people who suffer from the scourge of weakness and a lack of ability.  Hope is nothing more than vision without ability to execute.   People invested in products they did not understand in the hopes of unrealistic gains.  Gains not from investment in hard work or the creation of industry, but in the creation of mountains of paper and debt.   Politicians want us to accept the immoral transfer of wealth from future generations to prop up a rigged market that has proven itself incapable because it suits their needs, not because it is in the best interest of the greater good they claim to serve.   The same people who claim these bank bailouts are necessary to protect the people are very ones benefiting the most from the bailout.   They have failed in every possible way, lacking any purpose other than the accumulation of money without the production of value in exchange.  Now we are told that we must protect them to protect the market and the welfare of the people, which is nothing more than the foolishness of fools.  

    But perhaps it is already to late to put an end to this terrifying conflagration which we now face.   Is the world so corrupt and overrun by the weeds of collectivism as to render useless the drive and vision of the individual?   It could be that the best course of action is the protection of our individual resources to await the collapse the idiots have engineered.   Social order among a collective is such a delicate and fragile thing, always in danger of being shattered by failure when failure is not allowed.  It breeds an environment where the delivery of the individual's basic needs is in the hands of government bureaucrats.  In the end, such a government must develop a police state infrastructure to protect against a failure to provide those needs.  Which is where we find ourselves today, as the United States slides down that very horrible path.   We now have a political system where legislators vote on legislation that they have not even had the chance to read, let alone contemplate or debate.  Legislators who ignore the will of the people, making decisions based entirely upon the fearful predictions espoused by market participants, who claim they are too big to fail without apocalyptic consequences.  Of course, they have grown so big in an environment where they control the government manipulation of a market that was supposed to be free and open.   I have come to the sad conclusion that our country is likely too far gone to be saved by the individualism that fueled its creation, there is no longer  a strong enough belief in those principles to allow a republic to operate.   We are a nation that is looking for a messiah to provide for us rather than looking to ourselves for that salvation.  The incompetent attack the successful through market manipulation rather than real unfettered competition, which undermines the health of the republic.
 
   The time has come where investment must be in the instruments of production of the necessities of individual survival with the goal of weathering the coming storm.   A storm which could of rip the very fabric of this republic to shreds.   I will not allow fear to be an excuse for my own failure.   I will not allow hope to idle me from action to provide for my own well being.