I feel that there's too many non-verbal aspects of what should really (and ideally) be a discussion on the issue, and that even the most well-written and thought out point tends to come off like a tirade.
But, I'm gonna do this anyway, because this is my blog, and because I'm going to approach this from a slightly different perspective.
So a few weeks ago, my dad and I went to a luncheon for Lee Bright, who's running against Sen. Graham for a US Senate seat. People at the luncheon were encouraged to ask questions - which we did - and a lot of people were concerned about taxes (mostly Obamacare taxes) that would affect not just small businesses and start ups, but also established corporations. I - as a near college graduate and a writer of fiction - began to think about that: if America, one of the last strongholds of economic freedom, falls . . . where do we go? When other countries go through crises, their people come here.
But where do we go should things go guano crazy?
At first, I thought the moon.
I mean, aside from a few rocks and empty landing gear from lunar modules, it's not that scary, it'd be pretty cool to bounce around for about a week, and then we could start working on something to regulate the gravity. It'd have to be a small population of colonists, so really probably just the factories and the workers -- the taxable things, really.
Shipping would literally be through the roof, expedited shipping would be out of this world expensive, and the returns would be arduously long. Not to mention that if people didn't want the moon colony to work, well, it's really not a quiet or invisible thing when a rocket launches in someone's backyard.
Then I realized that I was working from the assumption that only Americans would want a moon colony, which is surely not true. The English love their oriental teas; who's to say they wouldn't want moon tea? And there are plenty of other countries - specifically those who share the ISS - who would probably claim a legal right to the moon.
The moon's not that big, y'all, so this option wasn't looking so good after all.
Okay, but not good.
But then it smacked me upside the face: this whole scenario has basically been imagined before.
Imagined in 1957, when things were nowhere near this bad.
Atlas Shrugged.
Now y'all are probably thinking, "Oh, well Alyse, you're an English major; surely you love to read impossibly long books, right?"
Um . . . no.
I'm not gonna sugarcoat this, but I really have little desire to read that tome. I'd say the movies are pretty well made (with the exception of a new cast every go 'round), and it gets the point across well.
I'd like to skim through it at some point, maybe next week during Spring Break, but if I never get around to it, I won't die a crushed soul.
But really, those who are familiar with the plot, think about it.
Atlantis really seems like the best option. And because I haven't read it, I don't know what's going to happen in the third installment (this year, yes!), but my guess is that (highlight to see potential spoilers) John Galt's engine wasn't just an engine -- it opens doorways into a parallel universe, and that's how everyone disappeared without a trace, and that's also how they're able to keep Atlantis from discovery.
That's just my guess.
Either way, America is in deep trouble.
The whole world is in deep trouble.
Now, I may be an English major, but I still remember bits of math. I know people who know math and physics.
Just sayin'.
All I know is that when I graduate, I want a job.
I want a job where I can be a useful contributor to society, where I can earn a living, where I am taxed at a reasonable percentage (or better yet, Fair Taxed), where I am not required to have health insurance that my boss and I pay for because somebody decided it was best that everyone pay for health insurance, even those who don't want or need it.
I want to work when I graduate.
And if I've gotta build an Atlantis to do it, I will.
I just hope it doesn't come to that.
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