On his program last night, Beck revealed that his intention to "go Galt" is quite literal, unveiling grandiose plans to create an entirely self-sustaining community called Independence Park that will provide its own food and energy, produce television and film content, host research and development, serve as a marketplace for products and ideas, while also housing a theme park and serving as a residential community.
This makes me really, really sad. It says that he plans to have a residential community there. What about the children that are going to grow up and live there? That's pretty fucked up. Of course, it seems pretty unlikely he'll be able to do it, so maybe I'm fretting over nothing.
"Streets paved in peoples dreams". Why not just join Peter Theil's Libertarian Island?
Too bad when it fails it will in no way be a critique on Libertarianism itself as far as adherents are concerned. Blame will fall on the community itself and the poor execution of Libertarian ideals. It won't be "Oops, it turns out these ideas don't really map to reality at all" but rather "They just weren't real Libertarians. The didn't act how a real Libertarian should." That and they will blame warping influences from outside non-Libertarian economies that the commune is forced to interact with ("If only they were practicing these ideals this would actually work.") Of course all of that is assuming this thing actually happens. I predict that it doesn't move past some initial phases. Probably some residential (less than originally planned) goes up, and his little "university" perhaps. After that I can't see investors jumping on board nor many people wanting to live there. But at any rate, this is all kinds of awesome. I hope he gets farther along than he should.
I wonder if he's serious, since it just seems like a money hole which will leave everyone initially investing up shit's creek. Unless they want to disappear into irrelevance, they're going to have to find something to pull money into the community...and I can't imagine what that source of income would be. Does he want to go the way of the Amish people or build up something larger, like Rapture?
Glenn Beck is a shock jock. Credibility is not a valuable commodity to him. Anything that pushes buttons and moves money is squarely in his wheelhouse. Bill O'Reilly famously used to anchor A Current Affair. Glenn Beck, on the other hand, used to fill the time between Huey Lewis songs.
So, can we start betting on how far this lasts? I am guessing it never gets passed some initial planning meetings as not enough people will be willing to move there.