Painfully tempted to do a parody rewrite w/John Galt as hipster & Gulch in Williamsburg RT @thecalebbacon: Atlas shrugged and said “meh.”

I quickly shot off a reply:

@normative Who is John Galt? Oh, you probably haven’t heard of him, he’s really obscure. #HipsterShrugged

This started the ball rolling.  I’ve meant to go back and collect my favorites, but fortunately for me, Julian got it done first.  Check out his blog and the post here.

“Clearly the best course of action would be an efficient, market-based rescue paid for by voluntary participants in a free exchange of goods,” he told reporters on Thursday, speaking via a government-provided intercom. “However, I was hungry.”

Espada, a long time Libertarian-Objectivist and follower of Ayn Rand, a mid-20th century author and social critic and author of such books as “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Virtue of Selfishness”, stated that he was continuing to hold out hope for a profit-based rescue effort. When asked how he could afford to pay for his 33rd of such a rescue effort, he speculated that perhaps his parents could borrow the funds on credit for him. “That’s how they put me through school and bought me my car,” he stated. “But I might have to start paying them rent if that happens.”

Espada complained that his co-workers had infringed on his individual liberties several times since they became trapped together. “They used pages torn from my copy of The Fountainhead to scrawl what they expected to be their final words to their loved ones,” he reported. “And, they applied immoral coercion on a sovereign human being when they confiscated my Milky Way bar and used it to keep 33 people alive for 6 days.” Espada indicated that he would demand to be compensated for both the cost of the nougat-filled snack bar and for the paperback novel upon their eventual rescue.

“The worst part was when I lectured them on how mine safety regulations represent the enslavement of the productive class by the collectivist, leeching non-creative workers, and that this mine collapse was merely the workings invisible hand envisioned by Adam Smith. But they got very upset at me and have forced me into poop-bucket duty every day since then.” Espada said that he was contemplating “going Galt” from his sanitation assignment. “I just need to find an offshoot area of this mine to use as my gulch. They’re going to really be sorry.” Espada finished, “Also, I really hope someone saves me soon. I miss the internet.”

Eventually I couldn’t fund my habit anymore so I started stealing capital gains from white people. I knew I was on a downward spiral, and I knew I had to quit somehow, but every time I was confronted with a lucious, bright-red stop sign, or some glistening, freshly treated city water, I was powerless to resist.

Where would it end? What would my next sick craving be? Medical care? A college education? My depravity knew no bounds. I knew I had to do something to stop my life from sinking into an unending nightmare of addiction and dependence like what is experienced every day by people living in the dystopian hellholes of London, Paris or Toronto.

That is when I found help in the form of The World’s Smallest Political Quiz that showed me that on a four-quarter chart I measured left on social issues and right on economic issues and that I should therefore join seek treatment in a group called Fountainheads Anonymous. There, I learned the wisdom of John Stossel.

Today, I still fight my inner demons. sometimes when I’m near a library I can still picture myself using, and when I drive by a community college I still have the urge to apply for a Pell grant. But, by humbly surrendering myself to the knowledge that I am the only person in the universe that I should ever have to care about, I am finally on the road to recovery.

I have some mixed feelings about this case.

The court decided, rightly so in my opinion, that she does not have the right to obtain a degree accredited by the ACA (American Counseling Association) while engaging in behavior that is expressly forbidden by the ACA code of ethics – a code of ethics that she was made aware of before entering the program and taught extensively while enrolled in it. If she wanted to be a “christian counselor” then she should have enrolled in a Christian school that offered some alternative counseling degree that permits students to refuse to treat gays, or to refer gays to “reparative” therapy (as this student said she felt was appropriate.)

MY problem with this is that I fear it will encourage other bigots who aspire to be counselors or social workers to hide their beliefs and to actually agree to treat gay clients. I would not want this to happen; I think people like her shouldn’t be allowed within a hundred yards of troubled gay people seeking counseling. By being up front about her prejudices she probably did some gay folks a favor.

I understand the ACA code of ethics, and I think that in that context the school was right to dismiss her. But I’m not -100%- sure that the COE as currently written is going to result in a superior outcome than one that just says “If you hate gay people, never take one as a patient; refer them elsewhere.”

Full text of the court’s ruling. (PDF)

On one hand, a family who loved her is now grieving, which is tragic.  On the other hand, she was responsible for deaths.  Many deaths.  If the reports are true that she is the one who convinced Mbecki to withhold AZT from his people, then she is responsible for more deaths than the genocide in Darfur, more than the Haiti earthquake and more than the Tsunami back in 04.  Even the monsterous fact that she killed her own daughter pales in the face of her overall impact.

So, sorry for the family.  But I’m glad she will be given no more time on this earth to use killing people.  Ignorance kills.